abstract
The paper describes the general structure of the PMT_01 tool developed to assess the environmental impacts of different dairy products as Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) cheeses of Lombardy Region (Po Valley - Northern Italy) and High Quality fresh pasteurized milk in a cradle-to-distribution center gate approach. Based on the PEF Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) methodology, the authors aim to provide a useful instrument for technicians and researchers in the evaluation of the environmental load of dairy products, allowing the process-hotspots identification through 16 different impact categories. The tool requires a modest amount of data that can be easily collected at the farms and at the dairies. In order to test the tool's performance, the environmental impact of 10 g dry matter of Grana Padano PDO cheese was evaluated starting from the data of three different dairy farms used as “reference farming systems” and one dairy factory. A scenario and a sensitive analysis were also included in the study. The main contribution to most of the environmental impact categories was related to the raw milk production while the dairy factory process affected significantly only a few impact categories. The scenario analysis suggested that the anaerobic digestion could have a strong potential in the mitigation of the GHG emissions while the sensitive analysis confirmed that the choice of the allocation method at the dairy factory level is a key point in the methodological choices. Despite the test of the tool was done only on three farms and one dairy factory, the results were consistent with those of recent studies. Even if some improvements in the tool functionalities are needed, we believe that in the future it could be easily applied on a wider sample of farms and dairies, and used to guide the stakeholders through a responsible environmental strategy.
Conclusion
The results obtained, in term of potential impacts and contributions of the different compartments, were consistent with what found by previous studies considering both the environmental impacts of the finished product (Grana Padano PDO cheese) and the environmental impacts of the raw milk production. Even if the analysis was conducted only on a limited number of farms and on one dairy factory, the reliability of the tool in the estimation of the environmental impacts was supported by the fact that most of the findings agreed with recent works. Regarding the Dairy Farm System, that mainly affects the environmental performance of the production of Grana Padano PDO cheese and the dairy products in general, the variation among the results of the farms analyzed were probably linked to the characteristics of the farms, but this aspect needs to be deeper investigated and to be supported with a study on a bigger sample of farms. The starting point for further improvements in the tool development is to refine the capacity of the tool to compare the ability of the different farms and also the different dairy factories in using resources, highlighting how they can affect the environmental performances. In that way the effects of different management practices and technical innovation included in the system boundaries could be tested and the results obtained could be used to guide the stakeholders and the decision makers through more responsible environmental strategy.
