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Malaysia Palm Oil Industry: Sustainable Practice

In recent years, palm oil industry has become one of the key contributing sectors to Malaysia

economy. It currently accounts to approximately 8% or RM53 billion of the Malaysian Gross

National Income (GNI) per capita. Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB) studies show that more

than 5 million hectares or almost 17% of the nations land mass is cultivated with oil palm.Further, MPOBs statistics also indicates that the oil palm plantations have observed a constant

growth of approximately 5% per annum in the recent years. The continuous expansion the oil

palm plantation together with the negative image portrayed by international NGOs and the surgein global demand for palm oil have subsequently led to implementation of sustainable practice in

the palm oil sector.

Lately, many negative campaigns have been launched especially by international NGOs to create

bad reputations on palm oil industry which has caused some misunderstanding among the

consumers. Several calls have been made in the recent years to boycott palm oil in manyEuropean countries. However, positive and sustainable agricultural and palm oil milling such

Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), Malaysian Palm Oil Wildlife Conversation Fund

(MPOWCF) and Malaysian Palm Oil Code of Practice (CoPs) have been adopted bygovernment, international certification bodies and the industry players. It is believe that such

sustainable adaptation would be able to counter the negative image which has been associated

with the palm oil industry.

The sustainable adaptations listed above such as RSPO and CoPs are not only focused on

environmental responsibility and conservation of natural resources and biodiversity. This isachieved via certification by the relevant bodies such as RSPO and MPOB. The certification

requirement stresses on relevant aspects related to palm oil sector such as promoting best

practice in upstream and downstream industries, continuous development in the key area of

activity and responsible development of new oil palm planting. Lately, European market

recognizes RSPO certified oil products and fetches better premium price in comparison to nonRSPO certified products.

On the other hand, MPOWCF is working on the conservation on biological diversity

programmes. The objective of the fund is preservation of rainforest and conservation of uniqueand rare wildlife. The conservation fund is not solely dependent with government grants but also

welcomes contribution from the industrial players and as well as industrial players donations.

Currently, MPOWCF is also working along with relevant authorities such as Sabah Wildlife andSarawak Forest Corporation in the orangutan conservation programmes in Borneo. MPOWCF

also takes the main lead in the establishment of Borneo Elephant Wildlife Sanctuary in

collaboration with Sabah Wildlife.

Similar other programmes have been implemented by the government to counter deforestation.Till to-date the River of Life has replanted more than 300,000 trees in the country.

The Malaysian government has ratified the Kyoto Protocol on 4th

September 2004. By ratifying

the protocol, the nation confirms its commitment to reduce the emission of Greenhouse Gases(GHG). The palm oil industry has been identified as one of the key sectors where green projects

from palm waste such biogas to energy and biomass wastes to energy projects

are being implemented. This is also in line with government policy to reduce the dependency on

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fossil fuel such as the Fifth Fuel Policy under 8th

and 9th

Malaysia Plan and the current Feed-in

Tariff scheme which was implemented in the 10th

Malaysia Plan. The implementation of such

scheme in the palm oil mills promotes more comprehensive utilization of biomass waste such asempty fruit bunches (EFB) and palm oil mill effluent (POME). This also reduces the carbon foot

print of the palm oil industry. Recent research by indicates that the Malaysian palm oil industry

only contributes about 0.015% of the total global GHG emission which is very low. However, allthe good effort should not be stopped here and relevant action must be taken topromote sustainable palm oil milling practices. Top priority should be always given for

continuous development and the conservation of biodiversity programmes and let's hope that the

palm oil industry become more sustainable and portray greener image in future.