ABSTRACT
The Canadian dairy sector is a major industry with
about 1 million cows. This industry emits about 20%
of the total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the
main livestock sectors (beef, dairy, swine, and poultry).
In 2006, the Canadian dairy herd produced about 7.7
Mt of raw milk, resulting in about 4.4 Mt of dairy
products (notably 64% fluid milk and 12% cheese).
An integrated cradle-to-gate model (field to processing
plant) has been developed to estimate the carbon footprint
(CF) of 11 Canadian dairy products. The on-farm
part of the model is the Unified Livestock Industry
and Crop Emissions Estimation System (ULICEES).
It considers all GHG emissions associated with livestock
production but, for this study, it was run for the
dairy sector specifically. Off-farm GHG emissions were
estimated using the Canadian Food Carbon Footprint
calculator, (cafoo)2
-milk. It considers GHG emissions
from the farm gate to the exit gate of the processing
plants. The CF of the raw milk has been found lower in
western provinces [0.93 kg of CO2 equivalents (CO2e)/L
of milk] than in eastern provinces (1.12 kg of CO2e/L
of milk) because of differences in climate conditions
and dairy herd management. Most of the CF estimates
of dairy products ranged between 1 and 3 kg of CO2e/
kg of product. Three products were, however, significantly
higher: cheese (5.3 kg of CO2e/kg), butter (7.3
kg of CO2e/kg), and milk powder (10.1 kg of CO2e/
kg). The CF results depend on the milk volume needed,
the co-product allocation process (based on milk solids
content), and the amount of energy used to manufacture
each product. The GHG emissions per kilogram of
protein ranged from 13 to 40 kg of CO2e. Two products
had higher values: cream and sour cream, at 83 and