PROJECT DESCRIPTION
BACKGROUND
The dairy sector is a major creator of wealth and jobs in the EU. However, dairy products also play a major role in greenhouse gas emissions, with 37% attributable to enteric fermentation. The sector also has a significant impact on water resource depletion, freshwater eutrophication, marine eutrophication, freshwater eco-toxicity, land consumption and acidification.
Solutions are needed to improve the supply chain efficiency of French and Italian cheeses and to analyse and reduce their Product Environmental Footprint (PEF).
The Grana Padano PDO cheese (which accounts for approximately 24% of the total milk output in Italy and with 183 000 tonnes produced in 2015) and one French PDO cheese will be taken as references for the analysis.
OBJECTIVES
The LIFE TTGG project aimed to improve the supply chain efficiency of European hard and sei-hard PDO cheeses by designing and developing an Environmental Decision Support System (EDSS) in order to assess and reduce its PEF. This tool was aimed to be calibrated, validated and tested on Grana Padano and on another French PDO cheese. It would then be proposed as a reference for other EU PDO Consortia. The French dairy organisation, CNIEL, a project partner, would be responsible to test the EDSS on French PDO cheeses.
Specific project objectives included:
- Developing effective methodologies for calculating and reducing PEF, tailored to a wide range of hard or semi-hard cheeses;
- Making it easier to calculate and reduce PEF and its reduction through user-friendly tools;
- Spreading PEF among PDO consortia in order to increase the number of individual producers certifying their cheese products;
- Optimising of both environmental and economic performances in farms, dairies and packaging producers (PEF reduction measures); and
- Increasing stakeholder and consumer know-how about PEF, providing sound, reliable and simple information, which could also be used for green public procurement.
The project was expected to contribute to the Roadmap to a Resource Efficient Europe and the Circular Economy Action Plan, which foresee PEF as a common method of measuring environmental performance. Product Environmental Footprint Category Rules (PEFCR) are aimed at providing detailed technical guidance on how to conduct a PEF study. The LIFE TTGG project represented an opportunity to test PEFCR and feed into policy.
RESULTS
The LIFE TTGG project developed an environmental decision support system for companies across the supply chain of products of protected designation of origin (PDO). The system uses reliable product environmental footprint-based methods for assessing the environmental impacts of their products and for making improvements. The project carried out the following activities:
- Detailed analysis of the product environmental footprint category rules of the dairy sector;
- Data collection from several pilot companies in the dairy sector production chain (e.g. farmers, dairies and packaging companies) and assessment of environmental footprint;
- Definition of international life cycle data-compliant datasets for milk, cheese and final product production;
- Definition of a set of possible measures at different production stages that could improve efficiency and the environmental footprint of the companies;
- Development of algorithms and software tools for the quick assessment of environmental footprint at company and consortium level, and for making improvements; and
- Presentation of the developed tool to other producers of PDO products, thus fostering its uptake.
Specific outcomes of the project include:
- Three international life cycle data-compliant datasets for milk, cheese and final product production, which are awaiting publication by the competent authority (i.e. the EU’s Joint Research Centre);
- A feedback document identifying gaps and possible shortcomings in the current (2018) version of product environmental footprint category rules for the dairy sector;
- A support decision tool for the assessment of the environmental footprint of PDO products; and
- A business plan for the market introduction of the tool and its transfer to other sectors
Specific results of the project include:
- 1-15% reduction of energy consumption in dairy and ripening companies (several different measures proposed, with low-investment/easy-to-implement solutions tested providing 1% energy savings and returns in profits);
- 10-25% reduction of water consumption mainly due to more efficient farm management;
- 5-10% reduction of GHG emissions(CH4 and N2O) mainly due to measures to increase the efficiency of cattle, manure and feeding management;
- 30-45% reduction in plastic consumption due to the possibility to reduce the weight of plastic used in the current hard cheese packaging solutions.
The project contributed to achieving the objectives of the following policy areas:
- Product environmental footprint method (Recommendation 2013/179/EU)
- "Building the Single Market for Green Products" (COM/2013/196)
- The EU Action Plan for the Circular Economy
- The Ecolabel Regulation and the Eco-design Directive
- The European Green Deal and the Farm to Fork Strategy
- The EU Climate Law and the Effort Sharing Decision (GHG emissions from the farming sector)
Further information on the project can be found in the project's layman report and After-LIFE Communication Plan (see "Read more" section).
