Incorporating coastal blue carbon in forest reference emissions level and mar...
Palm ghg training final
1. Introduction to PalmGHG
The RSPO greenhouse gas calculator
for oil palm products
RSPO PalmGHG training workshop
6th – 7th December 2012
Kuala Lumpur
Laurence Chase
Llorenç Milà i Canals
Cécile Bessou
Melissa Chin
2. Workstream 1
Measuring, monitoring & reporting operational GHG
emissions
Amir Faizal Naidu Abdul-Manan, fuels scientist, Shell Global Solutions Sdn. Bhd.
Cécile Bessou (lead author), Ph.D., researcher at CIRAD
Jean-Pierre Caliman, Ph.D., producer, Director of the SMART-Research Institute
Laurence Chase, MSc., Independent Consultant in Tropical Agriculture
Sau Soon Chen, Assoc. Prof. Ph.D., SIRIM Environmental & Bioprocess Technology
Centre
Shabbir Gheewala, Prof. Ph.D., researcher at the Joint Graduate School of Energy
and Environment, King Mongkut’s University of Technology
Ian E. Henson, Ph.D., Independent Consultant in Tropical Agriculture
Simon Lord, Ph.D., producer, Group Director of Sustainability, New Britain Palm Oil
Llorenç Mila-i-Canals, Ph.D., researcher at Unilever R&D
Pavithra Ramani, Project manager in agricultural commodities, with focus in the
palm oil and biofuel sectors at Proforest
Bambang H. Saharjo, Prof. Ph.D., consultant for Sawit Watch, NGO
Mukesh Sharma, Ph.D., producer, Head of R&D at the Asian Agri Group
Adrian Suharto, producer, Sustainability Manager, Neste Oil Singapore Pte Ltd
3. What is PalmGHG?
The PalmGHG calculator provides an estimate of the net
GHG emissions produced during the palm oil production
chain by quantifying the major forms of carbon emissions
and sequestration from a mill and its supply base (estate and
out-growers)
Developed by WS1 based on
Chase & Henson (2010)
Based on LCA approach (ISO
14044) and a review of
guidelines/tools
4. What is PalmGHG?
The emissions are presented as t CO2 equivalents
(CO2e), per hectare and per unit of product: i.e. per tonne
of Crude Palm Oil (CPO) and per tonne of Crude Palm
Kernel Oil (CPKO).
The content of the calculator and the features of the tool
have been discussed within the whole GHG Working
Group 2
5. Important features
a) Flexibility:
I. Adoption of different crop rotation lengths and possible
choice of oil palm growth data
II. It allows use of alternatives to the standard defaults
III. It allows for the calculation of GHG for CPO and PKO
b) It caters for CO2 emissions from land use change and peat
soils management
c) It allocates total net emissions between co-products
d) It calculates annual net emissions per ha and per tonne of palm
product; may be updated yearly
e) It allows for scenario testing
6. Usage of PalmGHG
The main purposes of the tool are:
• Identification of hotspots in the life cycle of palm oil products,
with the aim of guiding GHG reduction opportunities;
• Internal monitoring of GHG emissions;
• Reporting to RSPO of progress towards GHG reduction plans;
• Exploring the relationship between resource use (e.g.,
fertilizer) efficiency and carbon emissions, as all the relevant
information is provided.
8. PalmGHG Calculator Implementation
• GHG emission hotspots in the case of mill C1 (Previous
land use: shrub/grassland, 25% peat soils in estate)
▫ Peat emissions, CH4 from effluent, land clearing, fertilisers 1. Identify
▫ Main difference between estate and outgrowers: peat area Hotspots
9. PalmGHG Calculator Implementation
2. Improvement
Opportunities
• Opportunities to reduce peat emissions
▫ Implement peat Best Management Practices: water table… (5-10%; 2-3 yr)
▫ Select peat-free (and low C) areas to expand production
▫ Progressively abandon and restore current plantation on peat (43%; 15 yr+)
• Addressing POME methane emissions
▫ Capture and combustion with heat and electricity recovery…? (20-25%; 2-3yr)
• Increasing efficiency of mill, energy recovery…
• Fertilisers
▫ Optimise fertilisers for yield increase and reduction of N2O
▫ Yield increase tends to reduce overall impact as “fixed” emissions from clearing are
divided over bigger output
• Address key knowledge gaps identified!
▫ Land clearing history; data from out growers; biomass value for former land uses; etc.
10. PalmGHG Calculator Implementation
• Technological opportunities balanced with 3. GHG
reduction
GHG reduction opportunity; cost; funding targets
opportunities (CDM; Carbon trading schemes;
REDD+?...)
• Plan project implementation pipeline
• Step-wise reduction targets
▫ More stretchy reduction targets for
higher emissions (more low hanging
fruit)
▫ OK to maintain emissions when GHG
intensity is already very low
• Go public!
11. PalmGHG Calculator Implementation
4. Monitor
Progress
• Updating PalmGHG with
relevant new data is
straightforward
▫ Land clearing in current year
▫ Fertiliser use and diesel use
▫ Changes in POME technology?
▫ …
• Then plot the annual variation in
GHG emissions
progress against GHG reduction
plan
12. PalmGHG Calculator Implementation
5. Report &
• Information can be used for company-based Communicate
reporting
▫ Sustainability reports
▫ Carbon Disclosure Project?
▫ Information requests from stakeholders: customers; regulators
(e.g. RED; UK Government); investors (e.g. Stock Exchange;
Banks) ; etc.
• or shared within RSPO for RSPO
communications:
▫ GHG intensity of CSPO vs. non-certified oil?
▫ Effects of certification on GHG emissions?
13. PalmGHG benefits
• Efficiency in GHG
reductions
• Robust communication
and reporting
• Consistency of
measurement
• Scientific leadership
16. The emission sources included in the
calculator are:
• Land clearing;
• Manufacture of fertilisers and transport to the
plantation;
• Nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide from the field
application of fertilisers, mill by-products and other
organic sources such as palm litter;
• Fossil fuel used in the field
• Fossil fuel used at the mill;
• Methane produced from palm oil mill effluent (POME);
and
• Carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide generated by the
cultivation on peat soils.
17. The following GHG fixation and credits are
considered:
• Carbon dioxide fixed by oil palm
trees, ground cover and carbon
sequestered in plantation litter;
• Carbon dioxide fixed by biomass
in conservation areas;
• GHG emissions avoided by the
selling of mill energy by-
products (e.g. electricity sold to
the grid; palm kernel shell sold
to industrial furnaces).
18. Items that are not included are
• nursery stage;
• pesticide treatments;
• fuel used for land clearing;
• emissions embedded in
infrastructure and machinery; and
• sequestration of carbon in palm
products and by-products.
These items are generally
negligible GHG sources or sinks
19. • Provision is made for separate budgets for a mill's own crop
(usually produced on estates) and an out-grower crop (such as
produced by smallholders).
• PalmGHG uses the annualized emission and sequestration
data to estimate the net GHG balance for the palm products
from both own and out-grower crops at an individual mill.
• Emissions from the biomass cleared at the beginning of the
crop cycle are averaged over the cycle.
• Emissions from the other sources are averaged over the three
years up to and including the reporting date.
• The estimates can be updated on a yearly basis to reflect
changes in operating conditions and the growth of palms.
20. Allocation
• Allocation of the net emissions of CO2e between CPO and
PK, then subsequently between Palm Kernel Oil (PKO)
and Palm Kernel Expeller (PKE), is carried out according
to the relative masses of these co-products.
• Allocation by mass is only the second option according to
the ISO standards (ISO 14044, 2006);
however, allocation by mass has been used in PalmGHG
in order to provide stable results for all co-products as
they leave the product system (mill).
• System expansion is used for other by-products
(electricity; kernel shells exported for energy).
21. Life cycle inventory: Land clearing
• GHG emissions from land clearing is averaged over a full crop
cycle in PalmGHG.
• Total emissions occurring each year by new plantings is
estimated, added up, and finally divided by the number of
years in the average crop cycle (the default is 25) to obtain an
average emission per ha per year.
• The crop cycle length is defined by users and can differ
between “own crops” and “out-growers” and between crops on
mineral soils and those on peat soil (which are often shorter
due to ground subsidence, palm leaning and higher sensitivity
to pest and diseases)
• PalmGHG only considers direct land use change
22. Life cycle inventory: Land clearing
Values for ten previous land uses are currently available in
PalmGHG.
These values will be updated with the values provided by WS3 once these
are peer reviewed and published (Agus et al. in preparation).
23. Life cycle inventory: Crop sequestration
• Data for carbon sequestration in the crop can be obtained from
different sources.
• The preferred option is to base them on direct measurements, but if
this is not possible, modelled data may be used instead.
• The PalmGHG currently uses OPRODSIM and OPCABSIM
(Henson, 2005; Henson, 2009), which are specifically designed to
estimate oil palm and associated biomass in the plantation (litter
and ground cover) by generating growth curves based on climate
and soil data, largely based on Malaysian conditions.
• Alternative models are provided by Indonesian studies of van
Noordwijk et al., (2010), recently updated by Khasanah et al. (2012)
and included as part of the Excel-based RSPO/ICRAF Carbon stock
calculator (Harja et al., 2012). Data from these models may be
included as options in PalmGHG.
24. Life cycle inventory: Crop sequestration
• OPRODSIM and OPCABSIM produce annual values of
standing biomass for the oil palms (above and below-
ground), ground cover, frond piles and other plantation litter
(shed frond bases and male inflorescences) and provide
estimates of the nitrogen recycled in litter and ground cover
that can be used to calculate values for the N2O emissions
from these sources
• Contrasting simulation scenarios of crop sequestration are
used as default estimates for mill own crops (vigourous) and
out-growers (average) to reflect differences in biomass growth
and yields.
25. Life cycle inventory: Conservation area
sequestration
• Sequestration of carbon where vegetation is being conserved
on land that would otherwise be used for oil palm. These
areas do not include those that are set aside due to
legal requirements.
• No default values are provided, as carbon sequestered will
depend on the type and maturity of the vegetation, and on
climatic, management and soil factors.
• Growers reporting sequestration in these conservation areas
will need to carefully assess the annual sequestration, most
likely supported by field measurements.
• This is an aspect that is still under consideration by RSPO in
the light of international mechanisms such as UN’s REDD
(Reduction of Emissions from Deforestation and forest
Degradation).
26. Life cycle inventory: Field emissions
Emissions due to fertiliser production, transport and use
• Provision is given for nine widely used synthetic fertilisers
and two organic ones (EFB and POME) but additional
fertiliser types can be included by the user if required.
• For synthetic fertilisers, emissions consist of
i) upstream emissions due to their manufacture
ii) transport from production sites to the field;
iii) direct field emissions linked to physical and microbial processes in
the soil, and
iv) indirect field emissions following re-deposition of previous direct
field emissions.
• PalmGHG assumes by default that the whole amounts of EFB
and POME generated in the mill are used as fertilisers in the
plantation.
27. Life cycle inventory: Field emissions
Emissions due to field operations
• Emissions due to field operations that arise from fossil fuel
consumed by machinery used for transport and other field
operations
• Total field fuel used encompasses the fuel used for the
transport of workers and materials, including the spreading of
fertilisers, the transport of FFB from the growing areas to the
mill, and maintenance of field infrastructure.
• For convenience, users are required to simply include all the
fuel used by the whole plantation over a specific period of
time rather than separating fuel use for specific operations.
28. Life cycle inventory: Field emissions
Emissions from peat cultivation
• Emissions from peat cultivation include CO2 emissions
due to the oxidation of organic carbon and associated
N2O emissions.
• WS2 (Peatland Working Group) of the RSPO GHG WG 2
intensively reviewed the impacts of peat cultivation on
GHG emissions and identified best management
practices for oil palm cultivation on peat soils (RSPO
PLWG, 2012).
• In their findings, the authors put emphasis on the
importance of restricting the water table depth to limit
CO2 emissions from peat land.
29. Life cycle inventory: Field emissions
Emissions from peat cultivation
• Effective water management is key to high oil palm
productivity on peat
• Higher water levels would reduce GHG emissions and
subsidence
• However, if the water table is too high, it will result in the
leaching of fertiliser into the groundwater and reduced
productivity
• Good practice for oil palm on peat is one that can effectively
maintain a water-level of 50-70 cm (below the bank in
collection drains) or 40-60 cm (groundwater piezometer
reading) from the surface in the plantation
30. Life cycle inventory: Field emissions
Emissions from peat cultivation
• In PalmGHG, 80 cm as the default
drainage depth without active water
table management or 60 cm if there
is an active water table management
• RSPO’s BMP on peat strongly
recommends that regular water level
monitoring is carried out by
installing numbered water level
gauges. Guidance is also provided
for in the BMP.
• Users are also encouraged to input
actual measurement data into the
PalmGHG.
31. Life cycle inventory: Mill emissions
• At the mill level, two main sources of GHG emissions are
considered, fossil fuel consumption and methane (CH4) production
by POME.
• The user is required to enter the mill’s total diesel consumption of
the previous three years, and the average is used.
• Methane emissions from POME vary according to the treatment
applied. The amount of methane produced per unit of untreated
POME is reduced if the methane is captured and then either flared
or used as a fuel to generate electricity.
• Both the amount of POME and the amount of methane are quite
variable depending on the conditions in the mill; the user is
encouraged to use more representative values if e.g. volume of
POME is measured, and / or values of its organic (COD) load are
available.
32. Life cycle inventory: Mill emissions
• Calculations of CH4 production and amounts and losses
during digestion, flaring, or electricity production are
based on factors from Schmidt (2007) and the
Environment Agency (2002).
• The corresponding emissions avoided by the use of the
methane-generated electricity are calculated using the
mean of the electricity emission factors for Indonesia
and Malaysia (RFA, 2008).
• A further credit is given to the user if excess palm kernel
shell is sold for use as a substitute for coal in industrial
furnaces.
33. PalmGHG Pilot Test
A pilot study of an initial version of PalmGHG was carried
out in 2011 with eight mills belonging to six RSPO
member or aspiring member companies, to determine its
ease of use and suitability as a management tool.
34. PalmGHG pilot
Objectives of the pilot
• To allow growers to experiment with the tool: how can it
be used and what can it be used for?
• To test the consistency of the calculator: are all needed
data available?
• To gather feedback from users to outline
improvement needs and development priorities
35. Overview of pilot results
Mills Mean Outgrowers Peat Previous land use tCO2e/tCPO
tFFB/ha included soils
A1 23 no no shrub 0.05
A2 24 no no shrub -0.07
B 26 no no cocoa, oil palm 0.79
C1 23 yes 25% grassland, shrub 0.73
C2 19 yes 80% grassland, shrub 2.46
F 19 no no logged forest, oil palm 1.85
G 26 yes no wide range from logged forest to 1.15
arable crops
H 17 yes no logged forest 1.35
36. Net emissions for pilot mills
A1 0.05
A2 -0.07
B 0.79
Pilot companies
C1 0.73
C2 2.46
F 1.85
G 1.15
H 1.35
-0.5 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3
t CO2e/t CPO
37. Pilot results:
Example of mill C1 base case
Main emission hot spots are “land clearing”, “peat emissions”, and “methane
emissions from POME”. N-fertiliser production and N-related field emissions
are also major sources of GHG.
2
1.5
1 43% 52% 0.78
t CO2e/tCPO
26% 28%
0.5
14% 12% 9%
8% 5% -1 0.02
0% 2% 1% -1.12
0
Land Peat CH4 Mill Fuel N2O Ferti. Field Fuel Elec. Seq. Net Em.
Clearing
-0.5
-1
Estate Out-growers
-1.5
-2
38. Pilot mill C1:
Combining estate & outgrowers
1.20
1.00 0.96
0.91
+32%
0.80 0.73 +/- 25%
tCO2e/tCPO
0.60 0.55 - 60%
0.40
0.30 0.30
0.26
0.20
0.00
Base case Grassland Shrub Flaring of Electricity Low peat High Peat
biogas from biogas emissions (10 emissions (30
t/ha/yr) t/ha/yr)
39. Pilot mill G:
Base case
2.00 63.8%
1.50
1.15
1.00
25.6%
0.50
t CO2e/t CPO
2.2% 3.4% 3.6% 1.0% -1.64
0.4% 0%
0.00
Land Peat CH4 Mill Fuel N2O Ferti. Field Fuel Elec. Seq. Net Em.
Clearing
-0.50
-1.00
-1.50
-2.00
44. Scenario testing
Base case 1: mixed previous land uses, peat 3%, no POME
treatment, OER 20.8%, estate 20.2 tFFB/ha, outgrowers 14.2 tFFB/ha
5.09
Net
emissions
tCO2e/tCPO
1.58
0.71
0.27 0.24
-0.62
45. Feedback from Pilot phase
• Availability of data on previous land use, and more
generally for smallholders, can be a challenge
• Some users asked for Conservation Areas to be
included, but the methodology is not yet fully
developed
• Peat emission calculations may be too general, as
emissions are likely to vary with peat type (fibrous
vs woody)
• Difficulty in obtaining data from contractors.
47. Peer Review of PalmGHG
• The PalmGHG has been reviewed following the provisions in
ISO 14044 (requirements and guidelines for LCA)
• The peer review was undertaken between July-October 2012
• The critical review panel was coordinated by Ms. Monica
Skeldon (Deloitte Consulting LLP, USA), and consisted of
▫ Jannick H. Schmidt, 2.-0 LCA consultants , Denmark
▫ Jacob Madsen, Deloitte Consulting LLP, USA
▫ Thomas Fairhurst, Tropical Crop Consultants Ltd., UK
48. Main Challenges from Peer Review
• LCA (Life rules Assessment) specifics
Cycle
▫ Allocation
▫ System boundaries
▫ Sensitivity; uncertainty
• Land UseIndirect LUC
Change (LUC) and C fixation
▫ Direct vs.
▫ C fixation in palms and Conservation areas
• Usability andused
Auditing
▫Default values
▫ Ensuring traceability of input data
49. Next Steps
• The Beta version is now posted on the RSPO website to
encourage testing and feedback
• The Beta version will be updated at regular intervals to
incorporate results of feedback, defaults to be provided
by WS3, and other options such as alternative methane
calculations
• Decisions are to be made on the incorporation of
biodiesel calculations.
• The Beta version will be reworked by a professional
programmer during 2013 to make it more user-friendly.
