Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 13 on combating climate together with Paris Agreement of IPCC are global efforts to reduce emission in the world. In the Paris Agreement, the pathways limiting global warming to 1.50C with no or limited overshoot would require rapid and far reaching transitions in energy, land, urban, infrastructure and industrial systems (IPCC, 2018). To push this commitment further, UN Sustainable Development Solution Network Indonesia (SDSN Indonesia), has joined global efforts by developing programs namely DDPP (Deep Decarbonization Pathways Program) and FABLE (Food, Agriculture, Biodiversity, Land-use, Energy). DDPP Indonesia has developed the pathways in 2014 together with 13 countries while FABLE has just developed in 2017 forming the organization plus starting early network and research activities. Our researches are varied included developing low carbon efforts in industries such as pulp and paper, oil palm and coffee plantations using LCA and many other methods.

Short Profile

        Professor in Environmental Science and Biology and Director of Research Center for Climate Change, Universitas Indonesia. Member of Indonesia Academy of Science and Member of Board of Trustee of Universitas Indonesia from 2014-2019.

        Graduated Doctorate degree (1991) in Biological Anthropology from the University of New Mexico, and post doctoral in Columbia University, USA, then he serves as Senior Lecturer then Professor at the Biology and Environment Graduate Programs at the Universitas Indonesia. He wasCountry Director, then Vice President at Conservation International for Indonesia Program from 1994-2010. In 2012, he was appointed by Indonesia President to be a member of Indonesia Academy of Science. For his dedication for Conservation and Environment works, he received a distinguished award from his Royal highness Prince Bernhard of the Netherland in 1999 as an Officer of the most Excellence Order of Golden Ark. In 2009, he also received President B.J. Habibie Award for outstanding research on Natural Science.And in 2010, he received Terry MacMannus Award for Linking Conservation and Business Communities from Conservation International in Washington DC. In 2011, he also received Ahmad Bakrie Award for Achievement on developing advance research on biological science. In 2017, he received Lifetime Achievement Award on Biodiversity Conservation from Conservation International. He published 16books mostly on the Indonesia’s Biodiversity and Environment and more than 80articles in the reputable international journals mostly on Indonesia’s biodiversity and conservation. He earns one of the top high index researchers at the Universitas Indonesia.

        Indonesia as an archipelago state possesses sizeable fossil and substantial renewable resources but the geographic characteristic inflicts limited access to energy services in the eastern part of the country. Since the country economy reliance on fossil fuels utilization, restructuring current energy systems is essential to support the realization of the low carbon society. The review aims to analyse current energy systems development, to identify barriers in the aspects of policy planning and regulation, technical, market design, security nexus, and proposes key insights in designing the low-carbon society that requires energy system’s sustainability transition. Finally, an assessment of the role of renewable energy for designing sustainability of energy system and policy, by multi-scale, multi-dimension, and multi-criteria approaches, are presented. Finally, the key recommendations of research challenges are proposed.

Short Profile

        He is a professor in Sustainable Energy at the Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Indonesia. He earned his doctoral degree in chemical engineering from the Institut National Polytechnique de Toulouse (INPT), France in 1992. Prof Widodo has served as Director of the Center for Energy Studies, Universitas Indonesia (PEUI) from 2004 to 2007, Head of the Department of Chemical Engineering Universitas Indonesia, from 2007 to 2013, and Chairman of the Association of Higher Education in Chemical Engineering Indonesia (APTEKINDO) 2009-2012. He is currently the editorial board of Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering – Elsevier, Head of research cluster on Sustainable Energy Systems and Policy Universitas Indonesia (http://sesp.ui.ac.id/), member of the National Research Council (DRN) – technical commission energy, and senior member of American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE). Prof Widodo research focus include: (i) Sustainable energy system modeling and policy analysis and (ii) Nano-materials for sustainable energy technology. Prof. Widodo has published more than 100 scientific journals and four books, and has graduated 18 PhD and was guiding 6 PhD students.

        PROPER as Ministry of Environment and Forestry (MOEF) Program. The program’s objective is to act as a regulatory mechanism which can promote and enforce compliance with pollution control standards, encourage pollution reduction, introduce the concept of “clean technology,” and promote an environmental management system and conduct the business ethically through the implementation of community development. A color-coded rating scheme was developed under PROPER to grade companies performance against the regulatory standards. The color coding system is based on five colors—gold, green, blue, red, and black.

        PROPER assessment criteria consist of two categories, namely compliance assessment criteria and beyond compliance assessment criteria. Compliance assessment criteria is based on Environmental regulations such as EIA regulation, water pollution regulation, air pollution regulation, hazardous waste regulation, sea pollution control regulation and land degradation criteria (for mining industries). Assessment for beyond compliance criteria is based on the performance of corporate environmental management in the implementation of environmental management systems, energy efficiency, emissions reduction, 3 R toxic waste and solid waste, water conservation and the reduction of pollution load, biodiversity protection, and the implementation of community empowerment.

        The Ministry of Environment and Forestry (MOEF) will be revision Regulation of the Minister of Environment Number 3 year 2014 concerning Industrial’s Environmental Performance Rating (PROPER). One of the assessment criteria developed by MOEF for beyond compliance criteria is the application of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). The aims of life cycle assessment (LCA) are to identify, calculate the sustainability of the use of natural resources, disposal in the environment, and evaluate and implement the possibility of environmental improvement. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is based on SNI ISO 14040: 2016 Environmental management – Life cycle assessment – Principles and framework, and SNI ISO 14044: 2017 on Environmental Management – Life Cycle Assessment – Requirements and Guidelines.

        Some aspect of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) in PROPER is (1) planning according to goal and scope (2) Implementation of LCA (3) Reporting on LCA implementation; (4) Human resource has competence and certification (4) provide recommendations with continuous improvement work plan and program.

        In addition, this year to support the implementation of SDGs in accordance with Presidential Regulation of The Republic of Indonesia Number 59 year 2017 concerning the Implementation of Achievement of Sustainable Development Goals, the assessment beyond compliance criteria PROPER asses the industry’s contribution in program implementation related to SDG’s indicators.

Short Profile

        Ir. Sigit Reliantoro, M.Sc. is a Secretary Directorate General of Pollution and Environmental Degradation Control, previously he was Deputy Assistant for oil & Gas, Energy and Mining pollution Control. He got a bachelor degree in Environmental Engineering from Institut Teknologi Sepuluh November (ITS), Indonesia (1992); master degree in environmental engineering and system from the Clemson University, United States (2000). His has been over ten years’ experience in PROPER Program. This year, he and the Directors from Directorate General of Pollution and Environmental Degradation Control and Directorate General of Solid Waste Hazardous Waste, and Hazardous Management are developing the criteria PROPER. One of the assessment criteria developed for beyond compliance criteria is the application of Life Cycle Assessment. The application of life cycle assessment to industry in PROPER to identify, calculate the sustainability of the use of natural resources, disposal in the environment, and evaluate and implement the possibility of environmental improvement. Website: ppkl.menlhk.go.id, proper.menlhk.go.id

        In achieving sustainable development, we need to ensure positive economic growth that is socially responsible and environmentally friendly. In the global level, all 193 members of the UN have committed to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. This ambitious agenda has 17 goals and 169 targets, and ensure that no one is left behind.

        In Indonesia, the 2030 Agenda is mainstreamed in the 2015-2019 National Medium-Term Develop Plan (Rencana Pembangunan Jangka Menengah Nasional/RPJMN) to ensure that by implementing the national agenda, we are also implementing the 2030 Agenda. As a reflection of Indonesia’s commitment to implementing the 2030 Agenda, the President of the Republic of Indonesia has signed the Presidential Regulation No. 59 Year 2017 regarding the Implementation of the Achievement of SDGs. The Ministry of National Development Planning/ National Development Planning Agency also has issued a Ministerial Regulation and Ministerial Instruction to ensure the participation of all stakeholders, especially the non-state actors, to be actively involved in the implementation of SDGs in Indonesia, thus leaving no one behind.

        In implementing such ambitious agenda, and being the 4thmost populous country with an archipelagic geography, we have many challenges ahead. We need to develop strategies that are tailor-made to answer the different needs in the sub-national and community level, without forgoing the national priorities.

Short Profile

        This paper presents a review of the research and application of life cycle assessment (LCA) in Indonesia over the last 20 years and analyzes challenges and opportunities for future development. The study assessed 107 peer-reviewed scientific publications on LCA about Indonesia or written by authors affiliated with institutions in Indonesia. Relevant programs and recommendations to advance LCA adoption were elaborated. The first paper on the subject of LCA appeared as early as in 1996, while the number of publication significantly increased since 2010. The majority of these articles came from universities, research institutions, and international organizations. Drivers were mainly related to product competitiveness aiming to fulfill sustainability requirements of the global commodities market. Government policies also played an essential role in many aspects, including a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, sustainable consumption and production, green public procurement, eco-labeling, and green industry. Simultaneously, life cycle thinking has been embraced by governments and industries, especially with an immediate increase in the number of organizations implementing the recent version of ISO 14001. Increased participation in voluntary sustainability reporting also provides evidence of the prevalence of the sustainability concept. We believe that this development can serve as an essential step toward the spread of LCA studies in the future. Furthermore, the recent adoption of ISO 14040/44 as national standards in 2016/2017 also marked the commitment of Indonesian governments in LCA and is expected to stimulate the adoption of LCA based environmental labels, such as carbon footprint, environmental product declaration, and product environmental footprint. The research and application of LCA in Indonesia are still in its infancy, as partly proved by a relatively small number of publications as compared to some other Southeast Asian countries. However, there was a notable increase in publication over the last 5 years, indicating a growing interest in LCA, mainly from academics and to less extent from private sectors. Although LCA has not been explicitly formulated in the national strategies and legislation, Indonesian governments do require life cycle thinking to inform policy-making. Nevertheless, the lack of incentives for green products, LCA programs, LCA expertise, and localized inventory data hampers its implementation. In the future, improvement should focus on LCA capacity building, the establishment of a forum to communicate LCA studies and resources, development of national life cycle inventory databases, and provision of market incentives for green products.

Reference:

E.I. Wiloso et al. (2018) Life Cycle Assessment Research and Application in Indonesia. International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11367-018-1459-3

Short Profile

        Dr. Edi Iswanto Wiloso is a senior researcher at the Research Center for Chemistry, Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) and employed as a researcher since 1986. His research interest is on environmental sustainability of products, with a particular interest in life cycle assessment. He got a bachelor degree in Agro-industrial Engineering from Bogor Agricultural University, Indonesia (1984); master degree in Chemical Engineering from University of Waterloo, Canada (1991); and PhD in Environmental Science from Leiden University, the Netherlands (2015). He is the founder and currently chairing ILCAN (Indonesian Life Cycle Assessment Network), a voluntary initiative with the objective to promote LCA research and application to support sustainable development in Indonesia. This year, he and coauthors from ILCAN have just published a journal article “Life Cycle Assessment Research and Application in Indonesia” https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11367-018-1459-3.

        About three years ago, the UN General Assembly adopted the so-called Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which exist of 17 goals and 169 targets. Last year, a set of 232 indicators was agreed upon. The SDGs, targets and indicators are a milestone in human history, provide an ambitious and comprehensive agenda for the future and, if implemented, might result in a fundamentally more sustainable world. Looking with a life cycle assessment (LCA eye to the long list of indicators) the question raises: where and how can LCA, LCSA or LCT contribute to the SDGs? For that we first need to define what LCA and LCSA are and what they are about.

        Life cycle assessment of product systems, studying environmental impacts of e.g. consumer products, has a history that dates back to the 1960s and 1970s. It was recognized at that point that for many products, a large share of the environmental impacts is not just in the use of the product, but might be originating from its production, transportation or disposal. It was also acknowledged that improving a product system may have trade offs in several areas, by either shifting problems to other processes, phases of the product’s life cycle, to other countries, substances, impacts, or just to the future. Gradually, the importance of addressing the whole life cycle of a product and all related environmental impacts became an issue in the 1980s and 1990s. Out of this emerged the idea of life cycle assessment (LCA) and since then LCA has developed fast. Today, it has become part of several policy regulations world-wide.

        About ten years ago, LCA was broadened and deepened to a more comprehensive Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA). Definitions of LCSA are not yet carved in a stone, but the most widely adopted definition is: LCSA = LCA + LCC (Life Cycle Costing) + SLCA (Social LCA). This definition is basically about broadening the impact considered from environmental impact to also include economic and social impacts adopting the full sustainability definition. Another definition of LCSA added two other dimensions to this broadening of impacts dimension: broadening the level of analysis (from product analyses to sector- and economy-wide analyses), and deepening the analysis to include other than just technological relations.

        LCA and LCSA can particularly be of help for the SDGs in mapping and checking of trade-offs between goals, targets or indicators, and in bringing evidence-based analyses to reaching the goals. As most SDG indicators are defined on a macro level (global- or country-level), particularly LCSA may be suitable for this. In this presentation, the history and method(s) of LCA and LCSA will be introduced.

        Next, it will be explored how LCA and LCSA can support SDGs, illustrated by selected examples. Finally, some LCA/LCSA limitations and challenges for Indonesia (and South-East Asia in general) will be discussed.

References:

Guinée, Jeroen et al. (2010) “Life cycle assessment: past, present, and future” Environ. Sci. Technol. 45(1): 90-96. https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es101316v

Guinée, Jeroen (2016) “Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment: what is it and what are its challenges?” In: Roland Clift & Angela Druckman (Eds), Taking Stock of Industrial Ecology, pp. 45-68. Springer Open. ISBN 978-3-319-20571-7. https://www.springer.com/la/book/9783319205700

Guinée, Jeroen et al. (2018) “Digesting the alphabet soup of LCA” International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11367-018-1478-0

Short Profile

        Dr. ir. Jeroen Guinée (M) has worked at the Institute of Envi­ron­mental Scie­nces (CML), Le­i­den Un­i­ve­rsi­ty since 1987, focusing on the research areas of life cycle assessment (LCA) and substance flow analysis (SFA). He has completed his PhD on LCA in 1995. From 1994-1998 he was co-ordinator of an inter-university project on metals. After that he was a senior-researcher in, and/or project leader or reviewer of many national and over 10 EU framework projects. In 2002 he edited one of the most respected publications in the field of Life Cycle Assessment: “ Handbook on Life Cycle Assessment. Operational Guide to the ISO Standards”. His research has resulted in more than 50 publications in international scientific journals and books. He teaches an advanced LCA course for Industrial Ecology Master students and supervises several PhD students.

        Growing population along with economic growth has led to increasing consumptive lifestyles in emerging economies. Many of these economies are also large producers of agricultural products and materials relying on heavy industries for domestic consumption as well as export. The compromise of this increased consumption and consumption with the environment, human health and natural resources is evidenced by land degradation,biodiversity and habitat losses, increased health risks and resource scarcity. Though developed countries have also gone through this phase in the past during the initial phase of development, emerging economies can avoid repeating the same cycle. To this end, tools are needed for policy decision makers and producers for strategic planning. Tools based on life cycle thinking have been successfully implemented in many of the developed countries and are also being increasingly used in many emerging economies. Using the case of Thailand, experiences will be shared on how life cycle-based tools could be implemented for supporting policy making, industrial application, and product competitiveness. Various applications of tools including product carbon footprinting, water footprinting, life cycle sustainability assessment, green gross domestic product (GDP), green purchasing will be illustrated.Examples will be presented showcasing howall these have successfully been used by policy makers to encourage sustainable consumption and production, and by industries to increase competitiveness and strategic planning.

Reference:

Gheewala, S.H., Silalertruksa, T., Malakul, P. et al. Int J Life Cycle Assess (2017) 22: 1641. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11367-017-1397-5

Short Profile

        Shabbir H. Gheewala is a professor at the Joint Graduate School of Energy and Environment (JGSEE), Thailand where he teaches Life Cycle Assessment and heads the Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment Lab for almost 15 years. He also holds an adjunct professorship at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, USA, and a Distinguished Adjunct Professor position at the Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand. His research focuses on sustainability assessment of energy systems; sustainability indicators; and certification issues in biofuels and agro-industry. He is a national expert on life cycle inventory as well as product carbon footprinting in Thailand and a steering committee member of the Life Cycle Impact Assessment flagship of the UNEP/SETAC Life Cycle Initiative. Shabbir mentors the research network on LCA and policy for food, fuel and climate change in Thailand.

        Companies and governments are faced with an increased demand for transparency, reliability and understandability around green claims. At the moment 90% of all claims cannot be substantiated. Many initiatives have been started to make reporting and communicating on environmental impacts more fact based. In this key note Eric will address the key success factors of robust and sound product footprinting: 1) guidance, 2) capacity building, 3) focus on application and 4) ease of use. Learnings from successful initiatives around the world will be shared, so the audience can turn them into action.

Short Profile

        Eric Mieras is managing director of PRé Sustainability, the developer of the world-leading SimaPro LCA Software. He makes sure the PRé team stays aware of the strategic challenges its clients face. He believes that a lot of sustainability approaches and targets- like SDGs, science-based targets, circular economy, to name a few – can benefit from the profound and sound expertise that Life Cycle Thinking can bring to make sustainability related decisions more fact-based. At the same time, methods and tools that provide sustainability metrics can make the initiatives more actionable and measurable. He is actively involved in a number of ground breaking projects, like the Environmental Footprint pilot from the European Commission and sector based tools, like the BRE EPD tool and the Diary Farmers Footprinting tool. These developments scale up the use of sustainability metrics dramatically.

        We have seen rivers burning, marine litter growing, climate change impacts increasing, limited resources to name a few. Often our resources are directed towards actions which we create unexpected impacts elsewhere, because we have not considered the full range of impacts along a product life cycle. Life cycle assessment has increasing become a tool of choice to understand the environmental and social trade-offs associated with product and packaging systems.

        What have we learned that can accelerate the generation and use of life cycle information to inform decision making? As we are approaching nearly 30 years of experiences, there is much still to do to develop the capacity and capabilities to generate and use life cycle information to ensure we are working on the right issue, at the right place in the value chain, and by the right groups. We see a future where products will be designed, manufactured, used and managed at the end of life in ways to create reduced environmental and social impacts than the previous generation. These innovative products will create business value, e.g., growing revenue, enhancing brand, reducing costs, and mitigating risk). All actors over a product’s life cycle have a role. New business models will surfaced. These outcomes are happening now, but not at the scale needed. Based upon nearly 30 years of experiences, we have identified Ten Golden Rules for applying life cycle information. These will be described with examples and guidance on how they can be applied within your own organization.

Short Profile

        Dr Jim Fava is Chief Strategist at Anthesis Group. With over 25 years of experiences in the sustainability space, he helps the world’s businesses scale sustainability. Dr Fava has been called the ‘father of modern-day life cycle assessment’. He co-founded Five Winds International, which merged with PE (now thinkstep), founded the Product Sustainability Roundtable, co-founded the SETAC LCA Advisory Group, co-founded and played key roles within the UNEP/SETAC Life Cycle Initiative, co-chaired the UNEP/SETAC Life Cycle Initiative’s Hotspot Analysis Flagship Project, and co-founded and is Executive Director of the Forum for Sustainability through Life Cycle Innovation e.V ( FSLCI).

        Several interest has been raised on the social impact assessment of a product life cycle in the last decades. It is even more important if we consider the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in which 5 goals out of 17 are related to the social impacts. Particular importance has the 12th SDG on Responsible Consumption and Production that highlights the necessity to work in parallel on more sustainable manufacturing and consumption. Life cycle assessment has been considered as the best tool to support decision-making process toward a more sustainable production, it is standardized but it assesses only the environmental dimension of sustainability: with it is not possible to measure the trade-off among the three dimensions of sustainability and if the improvement of the environmental performance of a product causes a decrease of the social one. That is one of the reason that leads the development of the social life cycle assessment (S-LCA) as a complementary approach to the LCA in assessing the positive and negative impacts of a product life cycle. An overview of the main scientific references and current initiatives on S-LCA will be given in the presentation to present current state of the art and further developments.

Short Profile

        Since June 2017 Marzia Traverso is Professor and Head of the Institute of Sustainability in Civil Engineering. Before she worked as a Scientific Officer at the Joint Research Centre Seville of the European Commission, responsible for the development of criteria for Green Public Procurement on Street Lighting, of Transport and for the Building Sector. She was also part of the BMW Group as a project manager at the Research & Innovation Centre. She was responsible for the sustainability performance and LCA of several cars, such as BMW i3 and BMW i8. During her post-docs she worked at the Chair of Sustainable Engineering at TU Berlin and focused on Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment and Social Life Cycle Assessment.

        She is a member of the Steering Committee of the Social LC Alliance (www.social-lca.org/) and subject-editor for S-LCA of the International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment. She is author and reviewer of several international peer-reviewed journals such as International Journal of LCA. She is also a member of the Italian Network of LCA and the founder of the non-profit organization Information for Sustainable Development (iSuD).

        As LCA practitioners, we would all like to see LCA gaining more popularity as a holistic, scientifically backed tool for decision-makers concerned with understanding and balancing different kinds of environmental and socio-economic impacts of business decisions. Such decisions rely not only on events or facts, but also on how those events and facts are interpreted. Therefore, for LCA studies to move to a mainstream analytical tool supporting policy and business decisions, study results must also come across as decision-support principles understood by non-experts.

        The keynote will explain how LCA studies might be analyzed and interpreted to derive principles relevant from a business leader’s perspective. It will also explore supplementing of LCA study results with an understanding of Life Cycle approaches and Life Cycle knowledge to deliver business value.

Short Profile

        Supporting FICCI’s international and national outreach to promote Life Cycle thinking in India and develop locally relevant models for sustainable production and consumption. Co-chaired UNEP SETAC Life Cycle Initiative’s Phase 3 flagship on Global Capability Development. First elected President of Forum for Sustainability through Life Cycle innovation, a global community organization set up to be the home for all things life cycle. Doctorate in Management with specialization in Business Policy from Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. 30+ years of experience in industry and academics.

        LCA in Japan has received attention since the beginning of 1990s in accordance with ISO standardization. There have been great progresses in scientific achievements and implementations of LCA in the past quarter century. For example, the LCA database authorized by industrial associations has been built and managed by Japan LCA forum. The Life Cycle Impact assessment Method based on Endpoint modeling (LIME) has been developed by LCA researchers. LCA has been widespread in Japanese industries, the results of which were used for designing their products and communication with their customers. The speaker had been involved in the development of LCI for electricity grid mix in Japan, then collaborated to develop LCI with Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, etc.

        One of the recent hottest topics in LCA in Japan is the application of LCA to Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design, LEED, which drastically enhanced LCA in Japan as well as other countries as the tool for EPD.

        The speaker will focus on some of these topics in the keynote speech.

Short Profile

        Since 1996, he has been in involved in researches on Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). He has conducted many LCA case studies for materials, energy systems, automobiles, recycling systems. He joined the University of Tokyo in 2001, then, he started to conduct researches on dynamic modeling of Material Flow Analysis (MFA) for base metals (steels, aluminum, copper, zinc, etc.), rare metals (dysprosium, indium, etc.) and precious metals on a global scale. He joined Chiba university in 2016 as a professor in Department of Urban Environment Systems, in which he has been conducted researches related to precious metal recovery from WEEEs, LCA, MFA etc.

        He has authored and coauthored more than 116 refereed journal papers and have edited 3 books. He was the chair of 8th international conference on Ecobalance in 2008. He was the editor-in-chief of Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, Japan, and an associate editor of the Journal of Japan Institute of Metals, International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment. He was regional editor of the International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment. He is now one of the board members of Institute of LCA, Japan.

        Oil palm is largely criticisedfor its impact on the environment. According to Life Cycle Assessment studies, the agricultural stage proved to be a major contributor to most of the potential environmental impacts, notably global warming, eutrophication and acidification. Focusing on global warming impact, main contributors are land use change and peat cultivation, N-related GHG emissions from fertilisers and residues in the plantation and methane emissions from palm oil mill effluent (POME) treatment. Impact from POME can be drastically reduced if POME is used for composting or if the biogas from anaerobic treatment is captured with electricity recovery. However, the impact from the plantation establishment becomes overwhelming when forests or peatland areas are converted to palm plantations. Oil palm plantations have significantly driven deforestation in Indonesia, together with logging and mining. It remains the most important agricultural driver despite the governmental moratorium and the certification schemes in place since 2011 and 2007; respectively. In order to protect primary forests and peatlands, which is absolutely mandatory to avoid irreversible carbon and biodiversity losses, it is paramount to define a sustainable land planning at national and landscape levels, as well as to implement agroecological practices in the plantations in order to sustainably increase yields and limit further land clearing.

Short Profile

        Dr. Bessou works towards combining agronomic and environmental assessments to provide knowledge and tools to design new agroecological and sustainable production systems.

        Her key research topics encompass developing knowledge on greenhouse gas (GHG) emission modelling, soil quality and LCA in order to model better perennial cropping systems and their impacts on soil quality.

        She has been working at Cirad for 9 years. Cirad is the French Research Center dedicated to Agriculture for development in the tropics. She has gained experience in more than 10 countries including Indonesia, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Brazil, etc. In the recent years, she has been more specifically working on palm oil. She has been notably involved in the development the RSPO greenhouse gas calculator, PalmGHG, and is the assistant Cirad focal point on palm oil supply chain.

        Dr. Bessou is the Vice Chair of the SETAC Europe LCA Steering Committee and the UNEP SETAC LCI Ecosystem services taskforce.

        She has been a member of ILCAN since its creation and of the scientific committee of the Indonesian Journal of LCA and Sustainability.