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

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.