Welsh Dairy Industry Set For Greener Future
Welsh dairy farmers, processors, and retailers have reached an ambitious agreement to further reduce the environmental impact of milk and dairy products. The Welsh dairy industry has published a ‘Dairy Roadmap for Wales’, which clearly sets out targets for reducing the industry’s environmental footprint over the next ten years.
The document builds upon the work already undertaken in England with indicators and targets purposely kept as similar to the England Milk Roadmap as is possible. “Having parallel indicators and targets will assist the industry in measuring the achievements, impact and outcomes of the Roadmaps, although I will stress that Wales’ targets obviously take into account regional differences,” says Delyth Davies, head of dairy development Wales at Dairyco.
The Roadmap sets out practical actions, including medium and long term targets, to deliver a vision for reducing the environmental impacts of the dairy sector without adversely affecting its long-term sustainability.
The Dairy Roadmap for Wales is a ‘living document’ and will be regularly reviewed by stakeholders to include an official review in 2012 and a full report in 2015. Targets for 2020 include:
* farmers will recycle or reuse 70% of non-natural waste
* 40% of energy used on farm comes from renewable sources
* 20-30% reduction in greenhouse gas balance from farms, compared with 1990 levels
* 20% absolute reduction of water use for all processors
* 10% of processors’ non-transport energy to come from renewable sources or Combined Heat & Power/Tri-Generation
* All tertiary packaging to be recyclable or re-usable
* retailers to ensure that all new stores emit less carbon than existing one
* mandatory energy benchmarking for processors.
