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. Andrés Calizaya & Oliver Meixner & Lars Bengtsson & Ronny Berndtsson, 2010. "Multi-criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) for Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) in the Lake Poopo Basin, Bolivia," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 24(10), pages 2267-2289, August.
    3. Sala, Serenella & Ciuffo, Biagio & Nijkamp, Peter, 2015. "A systemic framework for sustainability assessment," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 314-325.
    4. 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.
    5. 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)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Tymoteusz Miller & Irmina Durlik & Ewelina Kostecka & Adrianna Łobodzińska & Marcin Matuszak, 2024. "The Emerging Role of Artificial Intelligence in Enhancing Energy Efficiency and Reducing GHG Emissions in Transport Systems," Energies, MDPI, vol. 17(24), pages 1-31, December.

    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. 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.
    2. 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).
    3. Leal Silva, Jean Felipe & Nogueira, Luiz Augusto Horta & Cantarella, Heitor & Rossetto, Raffaella & Maciel Filho, Rubens & Souza, Glaucia Mendes, 2025. "Meta-data analysis of biofuels in emerging markets of Africa and Asia: Greenhouse gas savings and economic feasibility," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 213(C).
    4. 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.
    5. Chetan A. Jhaveri & Jitendra M. Nenavani, 2020. "Evaluation of eTail Services Quality: AHP Approach," Vision, , vol. 24(3), pages 310-319, September.
    6. 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.
    7. 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.
    8. 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.
    9. 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.
    10. 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.
    11. 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.
    12. 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.
    13. Victoria Vicario-Modroño & Rosa Gallardo-Cobos & Pedro Sánchez-Zamora, 2023. "Sustainability evaluation of olive oil mills in Andalusia (Spain): a study based on composite indicators," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 25(7), pages 6363-6392, July.
    14. Pérez-Mesa, Juan Carlos & Galdeano-Gómez, Emilio & Salinas Andújar, Jose A., 2012. "Logistics network and externalities for short sea transport: An analysis of horticultural exports from southeast Spain," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 188-198.
    15. J González-Pachón & C Romero, 2006. "An analytical framework for aggregating multiattribute utility functions," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 57(10), pages 1241-1247, October.
    16. Rui Meng & Lirong Zhang & Hongkuan Zang & Shichao Jin, 2021. "Evaluation of Environmental and Economic Integrated Benefits of Photovoltaic Poverty Alleviation Technology in the Sanjiangyuan Region of Qinghai Province," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(23), pages 1-19, November.
    17. Marlow, David R. & Beale, David J. & Mashford, John S., 2012. "Risk-based prioritization and its application to inspection of valves in the water sector," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 67-74.
    18. Mohd Saad Mohd Yusoff*, 2025. "The Role of Compensation, Supervision Support, and Working Environment in Shaping Job Satisfaction among Plantation Workers in Malaysia: A Conceptual Paper," International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science, International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS), vol. 9(3), pages 4578-4585, March.
    19. Jacinto González-Pachón & Carlos Romero, 2007. "Inferring consensus weights from pairwise comparison matrices without suitable properties," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 154(1), pages 123-132, October.
    20. Afsaneh Afzali & Soheil Sabri & M. Rashid & Jamal Mohammad Vali Samani & Ahmad Ludin, 2014. "Inter-Municipal Landfill Site Selection Using Analytic Network Process," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 28(8), pages 2179-2194, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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.