Covering over 70% of the earth’s surface, water is the essence for life. It is a key element in IOI Corporation Berhad's (IOI) entire palm oil supply chain, from oil palm plantation to resource-based manufacturing. Good quality water is vital for the health and wellbeing of our people and the local communities in which we operate. Hence, it is our top priority to minimise the risk of water contamination by our palm oil production to ensure a clean and healthy environment for all.
Use of good quality water in oil palm cultivation encourages healthy growth of high yielding palm trees. Efficient water management ensures a steady supply of good water and helps avoid aeration and moisture-stress to the palm trees during the dry or rainy season.
At IOI, we safeguard this precious resource by enforcing these measures and practices:
- Installing water-gate at strategic locations along the main and collection drains to keep the water table at an optimum level;
- Maintaining the optimum level of water to counter potential shortfall in rain and risk of fire;
- Maintaining riparian reserves to minimise soil run-off. Riparian reserves also serve as a filtration system to preserve the quality of water entering the waterways;
- Planting legume cover crops as a soil conservation measure to prevent run-off into the waterways and avoid any planting on steep terrain; and
- Monitoring and treating all palm oil mill effluent (POME) and wastewater before discharging into the natural waterways. The treated POME will be used for land application.
For the past three years, IOI’s palm oil mills consume an average of 1.4 cubic metre (M3) water to process each metric tonne (MT) of fresh fruit bunches (FFB). We are currently conducting a review on our operations, and will be setting reduction targets for the next five years.
| Water Consumption for the Processing of FFB (M3 water/MT FFB ) | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| FY2013 | FY2014 | FY2015 | FY2016 |
| 1.19 | 1.26 | 1.42 | 1.21 |