Life Cycle Assessment of RSPO Certified Palm Oil Phase II

This project developed time-series of life cycle assessment (LCA) results for RSPO certified versus non-certified palm oil. The LCA also differentiates between producing countries and types of grower (estates and smallholders).

Comparative LCA of RSPO certified and non-certified palm oil: the results

This project produced a life cycle assessment (LCA) comparing RSPO certified and non-certified palm oil across the five largest producing countries, differentiated by country, sub-national region and type of grower (estates and smallholders), with results for 2021 compared against 2016. The study is now complete and published in the peer reviewed journal Sustainable Production and Consumption (Schmidt and Weidema, 2026).

Key findings

For a shift in demand on the global market, RSPO certified palm oil performs markedly better than non-certified:

36% lower global warming
37% lower nature occupation (a measure of biodiversity impact)
16% lower respiratory inorganics

Global warming ranges from 1.9 to 11.7 kg CO2-eq. per kg of refined palm oil, depending on country and practice. The certified advantage comes mainly from less cultivation on peat, shallower peat drainage and a higher share of POME treated with biogas capture. The benefit is largest where peat is involved: in Sarawak, non-certified production on peat reaches 11.7 kg CO2-eq. per kg, against 1.4 for certified. The full results are in the published study.

What the study covered

A complete cradle-to-gate LCA of RSPO certified and non-certified palm oil, covering oil palm cultivation, palm oil mill, kernel crusher and refinery.
The five largest producing countries (Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Colombia and Nigeria), more than 90% of global production.
Results differentiated by:
- Year (2021, compared with 2016)
- Country and sub-national region (Indonesia and Malaysia)
- Type of grower (estates and smallholders)
Both consequential and attributional life cycle inventory (LCI) modelling.
Both direct and indirect land use change, including the effects of nature conservation.
A wide set of environmental impact categories, with global warming, respiratory inorganics and nature occupation identified as the most important.
State-of-the-art emissions models for field emissions, drained peat soils, methane from POME treatment, and the palm oil mill energy balance.

What the results show

Certified palm oil outperforms non-certified across all compared regions for global warming, by 15 to 71%.
Estates perform better than smallholders, by 11 to 12% on global warming and about 21% on nature occupation, mainly because of higher yields.
Changes between 2016 and 2021 are small and generally not statistically significant.
The certified advantage cannot be transferred from one country to another, because the role of peat and biogas capture varies by location.

What the results let you do

For certified producers, show the life cycle advantage of RSPO certified palm oil over non-certified.
For palm oil using companies, support claims of environmental impact reductions from sustainable procurement.
Identify where producers can improve, by country and grower type.
Help certification bodies such as RSPO set targets for GHG and biodiversity reductions.
Support environmental footprinting of products containing certified sustainable palm oil.

Improvement options identified

Taking the least productive peatlands out of cultivation and rewetting them, preventing new development on peat, expanding biogas capture and its use, and improving the efficiency of smallholder operations. The study also points to options worth exploring further, such as green nitrogen fertiliser and biochar.

Publications

Peer reviewed article: Schmidt and Weidema (2026), Sustainable Production and Consumption
Comprehensive study report
Life Cycle Inventories (LCIs) of certified and non-certified palm oil
Executive summary of the first study (2019)

The third phase is now underway

Building on this work, we have now started the third phase of the palm oil LCA: https://2-0-lca.com/clubs/palm-oil/. As a partner you get access to all data and results, and you can help shape the scope.

The price of subscription is a one-time amount at 5,200 EUR. The funds from new subscriptions will be used to expand the scope of the project.

For subscription (or questions), please contact us. To go to the club click here.

Partners of this project

This study was crowdfunded through 2-0 LCA, with financial support from ERASM, Ferrero, Syensqo, BASF, Oleon, Novonesis, AAK and Beiersdorf. RSPO supported the work by providing data extracts from the PalmGHG tool. The partners had no role in the design, data collection, analysis or writing of the study.

Earlier work: the first crowdfunded project 2016-2019

The first study compared certified and non-certified palm oil in Indonesia and Malaysia for 2016 and found 35% lower global warming and 20% lower biodiversity impact for certified. Its outreach included: