IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v15y2023i24p16954-d1302612.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Assessing the Sustainability of Palm Oil by Expert Interviews—An Application of the Analytic Hierarchy Process

Author

Listed:
  • Oliver Meixner

    (Department of Economics and Social Sciences, Institute of Marketing and Innovation, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, 1180 Vienna, Austria)

  • Sonja Hackl

    (Amt der OÖ Landesregierung, 4021 Linz, Austria)

  • Rainer Haas

    (Department of Economics and Social Sciences, Institute of Marketing and Innovation, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, 1180 Vienna, Austria)

Abstract

Palm oil plays a crucial role in the food industry, industrial applications, and bioenergy, accounting for over one-third of global vegetable oil production. The production area has quadrupled, and the volume is about seven times higher today than in the early 1990s. This significant increase is attributed to several factors, including the oil palm’s notably higher yield per hectare compared to other oilseeds, cost-effectiveness, versatility, and excellent manufacturing characteristics. Despite its economic benefits, industrial palm oil production raises substantial ecological and social concerns, such as deforestation, habitat loss, and labor issues. This study presents a comprehensive sustainability assessment that concurrently considers economic, environmental, and social aspects. Through qualitative expert interviews, various stakeholders in the supply chain evaluated the sustainability criteria of palm oil production and application using the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), a decision support tool helping to analyze, structure, and solve complex decision problems. The results reveal that, on average, the experts consider environmental criteria to be of the highest importance, followed by social sustainability, while economic criteria are of lower significance. However, the approximations regarding the weighting of the criteria showed considerable variations among experts. The AHP priority index for RSPO-certified palm oil is nearly as high as the reference product “EU canola oil”; this observation is consistent with all expert judgments. This study provides an adequate approach to assessing the sustainability of agricultural supply chains, offering practical recommendations for the food industry and policymakers.

Suggested Citation

  • Oliver Meixner & Sonja Hackl & Rainer Haas, 2023. "Assessing the Sustainability of Palm Oil by Expert Interviews—An Application of the Analytic Hierarchy Process," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(24), pages 1-17, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:24:p:16954-:d:1302612
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/24/16954/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/24/16954/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Yee, Kian Fei & Tan, Kok Tat & Abdullah, Ahmad Zuhairi & Lee, Keat Teong, 2009. "Life cycle assessment of palm biodiesel: Revealing facts and benefits for sustainability," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 86(Supplemen), pages 189-196, November.
    2. Sala, Serenella & Ciuffo, Biagio & Nijkamp, Peter, 2015. "A systemic framework for sustainability assessment," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 314-325.
    3. Forman, Ernest & Peniwati, Kirti, 1998. "Aggregating individual judgments and priorities with the analytic hierarchy process," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 108(1), pages 165-169, July.
    4. Lakshmy Naidu & Ravichandran Moorthy, 2021. "A Review of Key Sustainability Issues in Malaysian Palm Oil Industry," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(19), pages 1-13, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Reina-Usuga, Liliana & Parra-López, Carlos & de Haro-Giménez, Tomás & Carmona-Torres, Carmen, 2023. "Sustainability assessment of Territorial Short Food Supply Chains versus Large‐Scale Food Distribution: The case of Colombia and Spain," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    2. Shoki Kosai & Sazalina Zakaria & Hang Seng Che & Md Hasanuzzaman & Nasrudin Abd Rahim & Chiakwang Tan & Radin Diana R. Ahmad & Ahmad Rosly Abbas & Katsuyuki Nakano & Eiji Yamasue & Wei Kian Woon & Amm, 2022. "Estimation of Greenhouse Gas Emissions of Petrol, Biodiesel and Battery Electric Vehicles in Malaysia Based on Life Cycle Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(10), pages 1-12, May.
    3. Iriarte, Alfredo & Rieradevall, Joan & Gabarrell, Xavier, 2012. "Transition towards a more environmentally sustainable biodiesel in South America: The case of Chile," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 91(1), pages 263-273.
    4. Ferreira, Ana & Pinheiro, Manuel Duarte & de Brito, Jorge & Mateus, Ricardo, 2018. "Combined carbon and energy intensity benchmarks for sustainable retail stores," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 165(PB), pages 877-889.
    5. Zdenka Gyurák Babeľová & Augustín Stareček & Dagmar Cagáňová & Martin Fero & Miloš Čambál, 2019. "Perceived Serviceability of Outplacement Programs as a Part of Sustainable Human Resource Management," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(17), pages 1-21, August.
    6. Pablo Aragonés‐Beltrán & Mª. Carmen González‐Cruz & Astrid León‐Camargo & Rosario Viñoles‐Cebolla, 2023. "Assessment of regional development needs according to criteria based on the Sustainable Development Goals in the Meta Region (Colombia)," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(2), pages 1101-1121, April.
    7. Baudry, Gino & Delrue, Florian & Legrand, Jack & Pruvost, Jérémy & Vallée, Thomas, 2017. "The challenge of measuring biofuel sustainability: A stakeholder-driven approach applied to the French case," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 933-947.
    8. Muhammad Riaz & Wojciech Sałabun & Hafiz Muhammad Athar Farid & Nawazish Ali & Jarosław Wątróbski, 2020. "A Robust q-Rung Orthopair Fuzzy Information Aggregation Using Einstein Operations with Application to Sustainable Energy Planning Decision Management," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(9), pages 1-39, May.
    9. Chetan A. Jhaveri & Jitendra M. Nenavani, 2020. "Evaluation of eTail Services Quality: AHP Approach," Vision, , vol. 24(3), pages 310-319, September.
    10. Abdallah Alaoui & Moritz Hallama & Roger Bär & Ioanna Panagea & Felicitas Bachmann & Carola Pekrun & Luuk Fleskens & Ellen Kandeler & Rudi Hessel, 2022. "A New Framework to Assess Sustainability of Soil Improving Cropping Systems in Europe," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(5), pages 1-15, May.
    11. Laila Oubahman & Szabolcs Duleba, 2022. "A Comparative Analysis of Homogenous Groups’ Preferences by Using AIP and AIJ Group AHP-PROMETHEE Model," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(10), pages 1-18, May.
    12. Sharma, Mahak & Sehrawat, Rajat, 2020. "A hybrid multi-criteria decision-making method for cloud adoption: Evidence from the healthcare sector," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    13. Oriana Gava & Fabio Bartolini & Francesca Venturi & Gianluca Brunori & Angela Zinnai & Alberto Pardossi, 2018. "A Reflection of the Use of the Life Cycle Assessment Tool for Agri-Food Sustainability," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(1), pages 1-16, December.
    14. Holmatov, B. & Hoekstra, A.Y. & Krol, M.S., 2019. "Land, water and carbon footprints of circular bioenergy production systems," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 224-235.
    15. David Tremblay & François Fortier & Jean‐François Boucher & Olivier Riffon & Claude Villeneuve, 2020. "Sustainable development goal interactions: An analysis based on the five pillars of the 2030 agenda," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(6), pages 1584-1596, November.
    16. Haddad, Brahim & Liazid, Abdelkrim & Ferreira, Paula, 2017. "A multi-criteria approach to rank renewables for the Algerian electricity system," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 462-472.
    17. Talebian-Kiakalaieh, Amin & Amin, Nor Aishah Saidina & Mazaheri, Hossein, 2013. "A review on novel processes of biodiesel production from waste cooking oil," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 683-710.
    18. Joan Hereu-Morales & César Valderrama, 2022. "Towards a Sustainability-Based Society: An Analysis of Fundamental Values from the Perspective of Economics and Philosophy," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(14), pages 1-14, July.
    19. Andreas Schiessl & Richard Müller & Rebekka Volk & Konrad Zimmer & Patrick Breun & Frank Schultmann, 2020. "Integrating site-specific environmental impact assessment in supplier selection: exemplary application to steel procurement," Journal of Business Economics, Springer, vol. 90(9), pages 1409-1457, November.
    20. Crary, Michael & Nozick, L. K. & Whitaker, L. R., 2002. "Sizing the US destroyer fleet," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 136(3), pages 680-695, February.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:24:p:16954-:d:1302612. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.