As part of its ongoing commitment to minimise the environmental impact of the dairy sector, the International Dairy Federation (IDF) will participate in the FAO Livestock Environmental Assessment and Performance (LEAP) Partnership official side event at COP 25 on Thursday 12 December to discuss the role of low-carbon livestock in addressing climate change and food security.

Improving environmental performance of livestock supply chains

Caroline Emond, IDF Director General and Chair of LEAP for 2019, will join FAO at the UN Climate Change Conference COP 25 at an event which aims to boost tangible actions taken by the livestock sector to meet the climate challenge.

The FAO LEAP side event titled: ‘Livestock Environmental Assessment and Performance (LEAP) Partnership Approaches for Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs)’ aims to exchange views with governments and other parties and share information and knowledge on different approaches to achieving low carbon livestock, including how FAO LEAP guidelines can enhance national inventories of greenhouse gas emissions for evidencebased action for food security and low-carbon livestock.

It is hoped the event will inspire and enable policymakers and practitioners to accelerate the transition towards sustainable livestock production through the uptake of FAO LEAP guidelines.

“We have already made great progress through LEAP on the benchmarking and monitoring of the environmental performance of the livestock sector, but continuous improvement is our objective,” said Caroline Emond, Director General of IDF. “This event will provide further information and share knowledge on different approaches to be taken to minimise emissions from the sector whilst ensuring food security.”

Reducing emissions within the dairy sector

The dairy sector has been pioneering on reducing its environmental impact, committing to further reducing carbon emissions per kg of protein produced, and investing in research and development to find innovative and sustainable ways to produce and process milk.

In 2013, the global dairy sector launched the Dairy Sustainability Framework to enable the sector to continuously improve and demonstrate adaptation and mitigation progress made through proactive efforts. In 2015, the dairy sector was the first one to develop a life cycle assessment methodology to measure its footprint. In 2016, the International Dairy Federation and FAO signed the Dairy Declaration of Rotterdam, to recognise the major contribution that dairy makes to countries’ economies, the essential role of dairy in a balanced diet, and the key role the sector plays in addressing environmental degradation and climate change.