Big plans for cutting bio emissions – Fonterra

New Zealand is among the most emissions-efficient producers of milk, Eagleton told ‘Facing Disruption’, the recent Australia-New Zealand Climate Change and Business Conference in Auckland.

She says we can share knowledge and innovation while helping reduce domestic emissions. Dairy produces 25% of NZ’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Innovation will play a key role in addressing the problem.

“We clearly have a role to play in meeting the Paris agreement. Fonterra is NZ’s second-largest user of coal so again, we clearly have a role to play,” Eagleton says.

Fonterra’s vision for 2050 is to get its fossil fuel emissions down to net zero.

“We need to nail soil carbon storage and methane storage as well. We need to nail precision farming and keep working with our farmers to help them lower their environmental footprint.”

Eagleton says along with Fonterra’s 2050 targets it also has shorter-term targets. More information on those will be coming out shortly.

Last year, with the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation, Fonterra signed the dairy declaration setting out the key role dairy has to play in the UN sustainable development goals -- including climate action and livelihoods.

Dairy is a huge provider of livelihoods – and food security – in rural communities, Eagleton points out.

“We would like to say ‘nutritional security’ because it is not the calories that matter, it is how much nutrition you are getting and dairy is extremely nutritious.”

Collaboration is the key and Fonterra has partnered with DairyNZ on the Dairy for Climate Change Action Plan which sets out a framework for how the dairy industry will contribute to the Paris agreement.

“It is a phased approach and the first phase is very much focused on getting the foundations right. It is about making sure we’ve got the right education and awareness, demonstration farms, pilot measurement and then continuing to work on what that looks like.”