Page 62Page 63
Page 62
As New Zealand’s largest company, and the world’s largest dairy processor, Fonterra is playing our part to maintain and improve our emission-efficient dairy while supporting the global dairy industry in the transition to a low-emission, climate-resilient future.While New Zealand is one of the world’s most emissions-efficient producers of milk, we continue to work on further reductions at home as well as on sharing our knowledge so the global industry can benefit from our experience and bring overall emissions down. Our co-op’s climate plan focuses on three priorities: farms, operations and innovation. It is designed to achieve continuous progress and to support our products as the ‘dairy of choice’ for future customers and consumers seeking emissions-efficient nutrition. Our climate plan is also part of a wider philosophy, focused on responsible dairying, which champions responsible use of resources like water, nurturing our environment, the role of nutrition in sustaining healthy communities and the belief that as farmers we are the guardians of the land for coming generations.On-farm our aim is to achieve climate-neutral growth to 2030, from a 2015 benchmark, and enable game changing innovations to reduce global dairy emissions. Our farmers have done well – with the average emissions per kg of milk falling by 19 per cent from 1990 to 2014. In 2014/15 emissions for full life cycle to the farm gate were 0.89 kg of carbon dioxide equivalent per kilogram of fat and protein corrected milk. This is a four per cent decrease on 2008/10. Despite the absence of new tools to achieve climate neutral growth, we believe we can build on our track record through good management practice, efficient use of inputs and offsetting if needed.This year Fonterra and DairyNZ, which is the industry body representing all dairy companies in New Zealand, released the Dairy for Climate Change Action Plan. It sets out initiatives to train rural professional and farmers on greenhouse gas mitigation, pilots farm level reporting of greenhouse gas emissions, and researches further best practice mitigation practices on demonstration farms. This will enable the industry to contribute to achieving the Paris Climate Agreement. Successful best practice strategies include optimising fertiliser use, maximising pasture production, managing effluent and improving herd health. In the 2016/17 production season, 95 per cent of our farmers recorded their farm’s nitrogen inputs and outputs, including the greenhouse gas CASE STUDY 1: THERE IS NO ‘EITHER, OR’ — JUST ACTION“INNOVATION IS THE KEY TO ADDRESSING GLOBAL DAIRY EMISSIONS AND FARMERS ARE FAST ADOPTERS OF PROVEN TECHNOLOGY ”062 SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS (SDGs)