A Fonterra Guide to Climate Change

• 5 per cent ‘Distribution’, covering the transportation of the product from the manufacturing site, to thewarehouse, and its shipping to key destinations internationally.• Fonterra’s eco-efficiency programme met its 90 per cent recycling and re-use target in 2009. Since 2003, more than18,000 tonnes of paper, cardboard and plastic as well as a huge amount of organic waste has been diverted awayfrom landfill. These savings are equivalent to 7450 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions.• We are investing in leading edge research, in partnership with Government, to find practical ways of reducingagricultural greenhouse gases. Together the agriculture sector and the Government have already invested NZ$27.5million since 2002 and have committed to a further NZ$19.5 million by 2012 in climate change work through thePastoral Greenhouse Gas Consortium, which Fonterra helps fund and currently chairs.• Fonterra has joined with the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, DairyNZ and FertResearch to fund trials testing theeffectiveness of nitrification inhibitors in different regions throughout New Zealand. These trials will provide farmerswith the information they require to make educated management decisions on the application of nitrificationinhibitors to their farms.E: CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE FARMHow do animal emissions occur?Microbes in the rumen of the cow digest the pasture, provide energy for the cow and produce carbon dioxide andhydrogen as a result. A group of micro-organisms, called methanogens, convert carbon dioxide and hydrogen tomethane, which is burped out by the cow. Between 5-8 per cent of food energy consumed is not converted to a formusable to the cow and is lost as methane.Nitrogen contained in pasture consumed by the cow, which is not absorbed in milk or meat, is excreted in the urineand faeces of the cow and can then be converted by soil microbes to another potent greenhouse gas, nitrous oxide.Nitrogen fertilisers are a further source of nitrous oxide emissions,Methane and nitrous oxide are both considered to be more potent greenhouse gases than carbon dioxide. Under theKyoto Protocol, one kilogram of methane is equivalent in global warming potential to 21 kilograms of carbon dioxide,and one kilogram of nitrous oxide is equivalent to 310 kilograms of carbon dioxide. These values will be used for the12