Data from: Greenhouse gas emissions from milk production and consumption in the United States: A cradle-to-grave life cycle assessment circa 2008

This carbon footprint study for fluid milk was commissioned in order to identify where the industry can innovate to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions across the supply chain.
To proactively meet the needs of the marketplace, the U.S. dairy industry is working together to further improve environmental performance in a way that makes good business sense for the entire supply chain. In January 2009, the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy -- which represents approximately 80% of the dairy industry -- endorsed a voluntary goal to reduce GHG emissions of fluid milk by 25% by 2020. Based on a preliminary assessment of GHG emissions, a portfolio of ten mitigation projects across the supply chain were launched in 2009.
At the same time, the industry commissioned a greenhouse gas life cycle assessment, or carbon footprint study, for fluid milk in order to identify where the industry can innovate to reduce GHG emissions across the supply chain to achieve the greatest gains. The Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy selected the Applied Sustainability Center at the University of Arkansas to conduct the first U.S. national-level fluid milk carbon footprint study, and Michigan Technological University was chosen to assist. The study provides a benchmark to measure the industry’s progress toward achieving its voluntary reduction goal. The data will serve as the foundation for the creation of best practices and decision-support tools for producers, processors and others throughout the dairy supply chain. The data are being released through the USDA -National Agricultural Library's Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) Digital Commons to provide transparency in the project and allow LCA practitioners working in the dairy industry access to the data to use and build upon.
This study was limited to GHG emissions in order to estimate a carbon footprint for U.S. dairy operations (fluid milk). The study follows International Organization for Standardization (ISO) protocols to provide credibility, transparency and objectivity of the methods, data, and results. Part of the ISO compliance is an external review by a panel of LCA and agricultural experts. Their full review is included as an appendix to the main report, which is included in the link below. Fully ISO-compliant life cycle assessments are required to include additional environmental impact areas such as water quality, air quality, and/or human health, for example; interpretation of the results presented in this document, and more importantly, actions taken in response to the reported results should be used with caution because GHG emissions represent only a single dimension of the environmental impacts of fluid milk production. The Innovation Center is commissioning further studies to expand this work to include other environmental impact categories.
Similarly, the unit processes in the database released here were developed specifically to measure the GHG emissions of fluid milk produced in the United States. Practitioners should use caution if using the upstream processes, developed here, outside the context of U.S. fluid milk production. The upstream processes developed in this project were developed for a specific purpose and were developed using industry specific information. The data may not be applicable outside of the context of this project. The National Agricultural Library and the University of Arkansas are currently collaborating to release the new product flows that stand alone developed through this project individually in the LCA Digital Commons. The complete project data are available at the links below.
Resources in this dataset:Resource Title: Dairy Innovation - OLCA. File Name: Dairy_Innovation_OLCA_1_3.zipResource Description: Data files that contain processes, systems, and style sheets.

本研究旨在探究液体牛奶的碳足迹，以识别行业在供应链中创新以减少温室气体（GHG）排放的领域。为积极满足市场需求，美国乳业正携手合作，进一步提升环境表现，以确保整个供应链的商业利益。2009年1月，代表美国约80%乳业份额的美国乳业创新中心批准了一项自愿目标，即到2020年将液体牛奶的GHG排放量减少25%。基于对GHG排放的初步评估，2009年启动了十个旨在供应链中减少GHG排放的缓解项目。与此同时，行业委托进行了一项温室气体生命周期评估，或碳足迹研究，以识别行业在供应链中创新以减少GHG排放的领域，以期实现最大的效益。美国乳业创新中心选定了阿肯色大学的应用可持续性中心进行首次美国国家级液体牛奶碳足迹研究，并选定了密歇根科技大学协助。该研究为衡量行业实现自愿减排目标进展提供了基准。数据将为创建最佳实践和决策支持工具奠定基础，这些工具适用于整个乳业供应链中的生产商、加工商及其他相关人员。数据将通过美国农业部-国家农业图书馆的生命周期评估（LCA）数字共享平台发布，以提供项目透明度，并允许乳业中的生命周期评估从业者访问和使用这些数据。本研究仅限于GHG排放，以估算美国乳业运营（液体牛奶）的碳足迹。研究遵循国际标准化组织（ISO）的协议，以确保方法、数据和结果的可靠性、透明度和客观性。ISO合规性的一部分是LC和农业专家小组的外部审查，其全面审查包括在主报告的附录中，主报告链接如下。完全符合ISO的生命周期评估需要包括其他环境影响领域，如水质、空气质量和/或人类健康等；对文档中呈现的结果的解释，以及更重要的是，对报告结果采取的行动应谨慎使用，因为GHG排放仅代表了液体牛奶生产环境影响的一个维度。创新中心正在委托进一步的研究，以扩大该工作，包括其他环境影响类别。类似地，数据库中发布的单元过程专门开发用于测量在美国生产的液体牛奶的GHG排放。如果在使用本项目开发的上游过程时超出美国液体牛奶生产的背景，从业者应谨慎行事。本项目开发的上游过程是为特定目的开发的，并使用了行业特定的信息。数据可能不适用于本项目之外的环境。国家农业图书馆和阿肯色大学目前正在合作，通过生命周期评估数字共享平台独立发布本项目开发的新产品流程。完整的项目数据可在以下链接中获取。本数据集中的资源：资源标题：乳业创新 - OLCA。文件名：Dairy_Innovation_OLCA_1_3.zip资源描述：包含过程、系统和样式的数据文件。