The Grignon Energie Positive (GE+) project, supported by a wide range of both private and public partners, aims to assess the potential solutions that agriculture - including dairy farming - could adopt to face environmental challenges, in particular fossil energy scarcity and global climate change.

Initially implemented at the Grignon farm in 2005, the improvement program is now carried out across a network of 20 farms. In each farm, specific ways of decreasing the environmental impact of farming are identified and assessed through three performance criteria: their impact on the economic margin (Profit), on fossil energy consumptions and GHG emissions (Planet) and on the capacity of the farm to feed people (Population).

Thanks to the new practices implemented at the Grignon farm between 2006 and 2010, energy consumption and GHG emissions decreased by 35% and 20% respectively per liter of milk produced. The final goal of the project is to make Grignon a positive energy and carbon neutral farm.