LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT IN THE PRODUCTION PROCESS OF CRUDE PALM OIL (CPO) ON PALM OIL PLANTATION AND MILLS

Abstract

The increase in demand to land for oil palm plantations has led to the construction of many palm oil mills with large production capacities. These palm oil mills require a source of energy to operate. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) can be used to determine the amount of energy, costs, and environmental impact caused by the stages of the product life cycle. The purposes of this research are to analyze the results of LCA and Crude Palm Oil (CPO) production with several impact categories such as Global Warming Potential, Acidification, and Eutrophication collected from data of energy and material inventory used in oil palm plantations and mills of PT Y in 2019, and furthermore to provide the recommendation on reducing emissions from CPO production based on the LCA results. In order to process data, this research uses SimaPro and Excel base with the CML-IA Baseline method. The system boundary used is cradle to gate. It was found that the biggest emission comes from the Mills with Global Warming Potential impact value is 2.16×10⁷ kg CO₂-eq/kg CPO/year, Acidification value is 1.77×10⁵ kg SO₂-eq/kg CPO/year, and Eutrophication value is 1.88×10⁴ kg PO₄-eq/kg CPO/year. The results show that Global Warming Potential, Acidification, and Eutrophication were influenced by the emission from the mills more than the palm oil plantation.