LCA Food 2012 in Saint Malo, France! - Manifestations et colloques ...

GROUP 2, SESSION A: CARBON OR WATER FOOTPRINTS, SOIL, BIODIVERSITY 8 th Int. Conference on LCA in the
Agri-Food Sector, 1-4 Oct 2012
47. Carbon footprint of the Australian dairy industry
Sven Lundie 1 , Jake McLaren 2,* , Neil van Buuren 3 , Sebastian Gollnow 1,2 , Andrew Moore 2 , Larisa Maya
Altamira 2 , Daniel Thylmann 1 , Barbara Nebel 2 , Hazel v. Rowley 4 , Manfred Lenzen 5 , Karen Christie 6 , Torsten
Rehl 1 , Sabine Deimling 1
1 PE International AG, Stuttgart, Germany, 2 PE Australasia Ltd., Wellington, New Zealand, 3 Dairy Australia,
Melbourne, Australia, 4 Sustainability Assessment Program, Water Research Centre, The University of New
South Wales, Sydney, Australia, 5 Integated Sustainability Assessment Group, University of Sydney, Australia,
6 Tasmanian Institute of Agricultural Research, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Australia, Corresponding
author. E-mail j.mclaren@pe-international.com
This abstract describes an overview of a carbon footprint project conducted (2010-12) by PE International,
PE Australasia and a consortium of research partners. The project sponsor is Dairy Australia acting on behalf
of the Australian national dairy industry. This abstract outlines the project aims, methodology, approach
adopted and lessons learnt.
Overall the study aims to assist Australian dairy companies to understand the carbon footprint of their products,
and develop long term strategies to reduce hot spots in the carbon footprint of dairy products. The overarching
project aims are to:
Quantify the carbon footprint of the major Australian dairy products produced for export, i.e. butter,
cheese, fresh products, milk powders, nutritional and UHT-products, whey and lactose, from farmto-distributor’s
warehouse or export harbour. Altogether, 12 products have been investigated.
Represent the weighted Australian average product carbon footprint for selected products based on
annual production figures by region and by farm practices;
Establish an auditable monitoring system and framework for a reproducible carbon footprint reporting
that can be updated and expanded to include other environmental impacts in the future.
Meeting the goals of the project requires collection of primary LCA data from approximately 150 farms and
and 15 dairy representative processing sites across Australia operated by the major dairy companies.
The methodology for this study is in line with ISO standards on Life Cycle Assessment and the sector specific
Carbon footprinting guidelines of the International Dairy Federation (2010). Following the IDF guidelines
(IDF, 2010) raw milk intake and transportation is allocated on the basis of the milk solids content of the
final product. Operations within the processing plant are modelled as detailed as the data availability allow.
Three modelling and approaches are possible for addressing allocation issues at the processing plants.
The study includes all relevant activities from the growing of grass on farm to feed the cows, to the delivery
of dairy products to warehouse or export harbour. On farm site this includes emissions from mechanical as
well as non-mechanical sources. For the product processing the system boundary contains all relevant activities
from collection of the milk from the farm, product processing, through to export harbours for export
products, and for fresh products to the retailers’ distribution warehouse.
The scale of data collection and complexity of modelling approach for this project is extensive. The software
solution utilised is a linked solution, combining both GaBi and SoFi software packages from PE International
(Fig. 1). Data was collected using customised web-based questionnaires in the SoFi software which
allow individual producers to submit their data in a secure and auditable environment.
References
International Dairy Federation (2010) “A common carbon footprint methodology for the dairy sector”, November
2010
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