Source : NZO (Nederlandse Zuivel Organisatie) - NZO (Nederlandse Zuivel Organisatie)

One of the “icons” of the Sustainable Dairy Chain initiative is to create an energy-neutral chain of production from raw farm milk to the finished dairy product by 2020

• This means that 100% of the energy that is consumed by each of the different links in the chain must be generated within the chain itself
• The energy consumption of the Dutch dairy farming sector and dairy industry has been taken as the area of focus within the total energy consumption of the chain
• These two sectors together account for a consumption of 26.3 PJ. The goal can be achieved by using energy from sustainable sources that is produced within the chain, e.g. solar energy, wind energy or energy generated from biomass
  

The National goal is that 20% of the energy use is sustainable energy in 2020

• Currently on a National level 3,5% of the energy consumption in the Netherlands is sustainable produced (source CBS, statistics Netherlands)
  

At present the energy production of Dutch dairy farmers is 2.25 PJ. The energy is produced as power by windmills and green gas by anaerobic digestion

• So 8% of the total energy consumption of the dairy chain is already being produced by dairy farmers

The Sustainable Dairy Chain

This is an initiative of the Dutch processing industry (NZO) and the dairy farmers (LTO). The goal of chain participants NZO and LTO Nederland is to produce and market natural, healthy dairy products that have been produced in a socially responsible way. The goals have been clustered around three themes. The three sustainability themes are:

• Energy and climate
• Focus on the cow
• Biodiversity