How good and how green

Professionals from all corners of the dairy industry gathered in London, UK, recently to address the
issue of sustainability. Letitia Booty reports.

When it comes to sustainability, most people’s first thoughts are of the environment, and this is certainly a big part of the challenge that the dairy industry has to address. At Dairy UK’s “How Good? How Green? Does Dairy Deliver?” seminar held in London recently, the participants sought to answer this question, looking at sustainability and how to assess it from several vantage points, in addition to the environmental angle. These included economical, educational and social factors.
Richard Laxton, chair of Dairy UK Sustainability and Environment Committee and sustainability manager, Global EHS at Arla Foods, kicked off his presentation by posing the question: If cow emissions are one of the most devastating effects on the environment, is the dairy industry a positive force for the planet?
According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), in 2006 18 per cent of the world’s emissions came from dairy and livestock. By 2013 this figure had dropped to 14.5 per cent, but this is still potentially a significant contributor to climate change. However, Laxton was keen to point out that only 2.85 per cent of emissions came from dairy cows. An FAO report from the same year found that 14 per cent of the world’s nutritional calories came from dairy based food and beverages. The trade off may well be worth it, but we still need to find ways to make the industry greener and more efficient, he notes.

Dual challenge
Sophie Bertrand, chair of the International Dairy Federation (IDF) committee on environment for the French Dairy Interbranch Organisation (CNIEL), had a very similar message to convey in her presentation. She highlighted the dual challenge of supplying a growing demand for milk and dairy products as the world’s population increases, while at the same time reducing environmental impact and making sensible use of limited natural resources. She says that the best place to start is with collective and concerted action to improve efficiency along the entire supply chain.

Measure twice
Of course, you can only manage what you can measure, and there is a clear need for harmonised assessment measures and metrics. The UK dairy industry addressed this with the launch of the Milk Roadmap in 2008, which was to become the Dairy Roadmap in 2011.
The roadmap sets targets for lean, collaborative working across the sector, giving dairy professionals set goals to work towards yield quantifiable successes. All 2010 targets were achieved and the industry is on track to achieve its 2015 targets.
Laxton reported on some of the achievements so far since 2008:
• an eight per cent increase in energy efficiency (16.3 per cent for 2020)
• 10.5 per cent improvement in specific water use (20 per cent for 2020)
• a six per cent improvement in specific effluent loads (cheese sector increase in effluent and chemical oxygen demand (COD) loads
• 15 per cent improvement in specific COD loads (20 per cent for 2015)
• 74 per cent reduction in the amount of waste sent to landfill (100 per cent for 2020)
• 22 per cent decrease in packaging carbon (weight and recyclate) (20 per  cent 2015).

Economical
It has already been established that despite the high carbon footprint of the dairy industry, there is a good payoff in terms of global nutrition intake. Ian Givens, professor of food chain nutrition at the University of Reading, focused on this in his presentation as well as his research into the relationship between dairy intake and health across the whole lifespan.
Milk and dairy products have a high nutrient density compared to other food groups such as meat and cereals, and manage to pack in much more calcium while keeping sodium levels lower. A dairy-rich diet is therefore incredibly important for young people when calcium is in high demand for bone development, and low milk intake in childhood has been linked to bone fractures in later life. In addition, in recent years the number of cases of childhood rickets in the UK has been creeping up due to children following extreme diets that have very low calcium and vitamin D content.
Givens also reported on recent studies into the iodine status of women of childbearing age and pregnant women. The studies found that, while there is not a problem with iodine deficiency, many women were at a suboptimal iodine status, which could have a knock on effect for their children. While not conclusive, these studies have suggested a link between lower iodine levels in pregnant mothers and a lower IQ in their children. Milk is the best single source of iodine in the UK, with UHT milk providing significantly less, for reasons unknown.
Unfortunately, sugary drinks have overtaken milk these days and youngsters are more likely to reach for a can of soda, which can lead to worrying health complications. Initial results from UK diet modeling have suggested that high dairy  intake is associated with ‘healthier’ diets. Given the nutrient density of such foods, the financial and environmental costs associated with high dairy diets are not higher than those of a low dairy diet, he points out.
Milk and dairy can contribute to a nutritionally adequate, economically and financially sustainable diet. The main problem as highlighted by Givens is that of consumption, and he believes that driving this should be a priority.

Education and society
The dairy industry is facing a critical shortage of skilled people, and Justine Fosh, chief executive of the National Skills Academy for Food and Drink, presented the causes and solutions to overcoming this challenge.
The lack of skilled people is felt more deeply in the dairy industry than other food industries, due to a higher level of automation. Plant, process and machine operations jobs make up 46 per cent of the careers in the dairy industry, compared to 35 per cent throughout the rest of the UK food and drink manufacturing and processing industries, she states.
In particular, the dairy industry is struggling with a shortage of process staff and engineers, but a dissatisfaction and disconnection with the skills system due to  a lack of dairy focused training at colleges has made it difficult in the past for workers to get the appropriate training. It was this challenge that lead to the birth of Project Eden, she notes.
Fosh discussed Project Eden, which is a programme led by the dairy industry and supported by the National Skills Academy for Food and Drink and Dairy UK that enables UK dairy companies to offer their staff the training that they need. A dairy training facility has been developed at Reaseheath College offering an education in dairy over three years, with a combination of on and off the job training. Students can earn a foundation degree in dairy technology, or an apprenticeship in dairy engineering.
The project has enabled the industry to develop a pool of talent of 230 people and has positioned dairy at the forefront of skills in the food and drink industries.
Project Eden is encouraging collaboration within the dairy industry, to get more companies involved and to make its programmes more sustainable. It is also hoping to increase its scope to become part of the wider food and drink industry – for example, there is now a brewery using dairy engineering, which makes such programmes more sustainable, she points out.

How good? How green?
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