While feeding the nation and providing welfare for animals, British dairy farming has adapted to many challenges over the years. But now, the future of dairy faces its biggest challenge yet: climate change.
British consumers show their love for dairy every day. If any evidence was needed to prove that, then the fact that 96% of adults buy milk and a huge majority (78%) eat yogurt or fromage frais, is proof enough.
That said, as risks of climate change come further into the forefront, it’s important that dairy producers invest in sustainable practices so that their farms can better safeguard the dairy supply chain.
At Meadow, carbon is the biggest challenge that we and our customers face which is why we have made it our number priority to reduce carbon emissions across our supply chain. With over 400 dairy farmers in the UK, we are big believers that quality product comes from well-managed and sustainable farms. In today’s blog, we would like to showcase just a few of the many sustainable strategies we have implemented to support our dairy farmers on our shared drive toward net zero.
Each year, Dairy UK undertakes a nation-wide assessment of dairy processors to benchmark their progress on environmental sustainability. Since 2015, dairy farmers in the UK have made significant progress toward their target of net zero by 2050. In fact:
At Meadow, we are steadfast on our way to achieving net zero by 2050 and we know our farmers are integral to this journey. We are proud to announce that based on carbon emission measurements for milk production in 2021, Meadow has been placed as 64% better than the global average and 16% better than the UK average.
Our sustainability standards are strong, but we won’t stop there. Our next target for 2025 is to have reduced our carbon emissions by a further 10% per litre.
Alltech E-CO2 (Carbon Trust certified) provides third-party assessment that measures the efficiency of on-farm environmental practices. Through our relationship with Alltech E-CO2, we have been able to offer a fully certified Environmental Assessment that calculates the carbon footprint per unit of output on our UK farms.
Between April 2021 and March 2022, we completed a carbon-assessment project across 135 farms. Over year one and year two, the average carbon footprint decreased by 1.39%, with the average carbon footprint in year 2 being 1,053 gCO2e/kg FPCM and the average carbon footprint in year 1 being 1,068 gCO2e/kg FPCM.
Our partnership with Alltech E-CO2 allowed us to outline several reasons why our carbon emissions decreased. These reasons, all measured in a detailed report, concerned the likes of the reduced age at first calving, a reduction in the amount of fertilizer used and a reduction in the percentage of young stock on farms.
By getting stuck into sustainability with our farmers, we now have clear insight into Meadow’s dairy farm emissions and how to improve the efficiency and sustainability of our production. Since our partnership, we have been able to set clear carbon reduction targets along with ways our dairy producers can help us meet them.
We know how important it is that we support our dairy producers on our sustainability journey and as part of this, we hope our Alltech E-CO2 farm visits, creating individual reports for producers and identifying trends across Meadow’s milk pool, will help improve on-farm efficiency and reduce associated greenhouse gas emissions. We share our customers’ priorities for a sustainable future and through our partnership with Alltech E-CO2 we can demonstrate the work we are doing alongside our dairy producers, supported by data which has been independently verified through a Carbon Trust accredited programme
Jonathan Evans, Head of Farms
In 2023, we launched our bespoke Farmer Engagement Programme. Through this engagement programme we host a series of face-to-face producer meetings that are kept informal and relaxed. This means that our farmers get to opportunity to have open and honest conversations about what we need to do to collaborate and drive forward our shared sustainability goals.
Want to find out more about our ESG strategy? Click here.
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