The Dairy industry can and is making a huge difference by improving its processes through sustainable production solutions — e.g., by reducing gas emissions and water pollution.
At the recent 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, Scotland, the United States announced that it would join the international Global Methane Pledge, which aims to limit methane emissions by 30%, compared to 2020 levels, by 2030. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that the U.S. dairy industry is already tackling.
Conversations tied to dairy processor sustainability typically focus on plant-level efforts such as wastewater reduction or reuse, energy-efficiency-minded improvements and recyclable product packaging.
A 2015 report from the World Economic Forum said that water shortages will be the Earth's biggest threat in the next decade. Meanwhile, data from UN-Water show that by 2025, 1.8 billion people will be experiencing water scarcity, while two-thirds of the world's population could be living in still-concerning conditions of water stress.
I came to the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) just over three years ago to focus on the environmental issues, as well as the challenges and opportunities, that exist for the nation’s milk producers. One opportunity that caught my attention early on was water quality trading (WQT). To this day, I am still enamored with the concept.