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Australia’s dairy industry has committed itself to a developing a sustainability benchmark, with the launch of an inaugural dairy processing environmental report.
The industry will report regularly on gains made in water and chemicals use, gas emissions and packaging, as well as complaints over noise and odour from factories.
Launching the ‘State of the Environment Report’, Dairy Australia’s managing director Dr Mike Ginnivan committed the industry-good organisation to support the next report.
He warned that environmental performance could be the lynchpin of future export trade deals – similar to the effects of animal welfare standards on the wool industry.
“This report is more than about the dairy industry and regulators, for us it’s also about consumers. It’s going to impact on their buying decisions in the future,” he said.
Dairy Australia instigated the national report, which was launched in front of 50 dairy processing leaders at Sustainability Victoria’s Melbourne office last week.
Companies representing nearly 75% of all the milk processed in Australia contributed data to the report. These included Parmalat, Bega Cheese, Bonlac, Burra, Dairy Farmers, Fonterra, National Foods, Murray Goulburn, Tatura Milk Industries and Warrnambool Cheese and Butter Factory. The data covered production of all dairy products and included production for the domestic and export markets.
Analysis of the inaugural data shows that water use within dairy processing “is generally a one-for-one enterprise”, said Neil van Buuren, Dairy Australia’s Program Manager Resource Management and Technology.
Processors used 10,000m litres of water per year and recycled more than 2,000m litres.
“And that water use figure is likely to be lower this year,” Mr van Buuren said.
Energy use is also expected to drop, as is the greenhouse gas benchmark of 94.3 tonnes per million litres of milk processed, he said.
Waste water, measured in ratio to raw milk handled, ranged from 0.4 to 3.2. “This indicates there is opportunity for improvement in reducing waste water volumes,” Mr van Buuren said.
The report also detailed complaints received by factories – primarily about odour or noise. Crunching the figures shows that milk factories earn 0.02 complaints per each million litres of milk produced, he said.
“As an industry we work very hard to eliminate the nuisance value of noise,” he said. “We hope in the next report that the number will be significantly lower.”
Jon Ward, Sustainability Victoria’s General Manager Business Innovation and Technology praised the dairy industry’s response to environmental monitoring and management.
He noted that Sustainability Victoria has allocated $150,000 to support Dairy Australia-backed research into eco-efficiencies in milk spray driers.
He said: “We want to put some effort into this relationship. We really welcome this opportunity.”
Mr van Buuren said the report draws a line in the sand. “Companies now have something with which to compare their environmental performance,” he said.
Media contact: Neil van Buuren 03 9694 3811 or
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