The dairy industry has come under fire in recent years for the impact the sector has on the environment. However, this is an unfair reflection on an industry which is spearheading a number of campaigns to improve its environmental footprint. Since taking up the post of environment manager for Dairy UK I have been working with colleagues across the industry to help promote the positive steps being taken in the dairy industry today and have begun working on a number of cross industry programmes designed at promoting sustainability in the dairy industry. There is no doubt that the dairy sector does have an impact on the environment, however many of these are positive, such as land stewardship. Despite the positive steps already taken the industry has acknowledged that there is still work to do and is working hard to make improvements across the supply chain from farm to fork. This is an exciting time to be involved with the industry and I am looking forward to getting my teeth into the large number of projects underway and being planned for the future. Earlier this year the dairy industry and Defra published the Milk Roadmap, the first of ten roadmaps being developed by the government and industry, which are designed to help an industry understand the environmental and, in some cases, wider sustainability impacts of a particular product and the ways in which these impacts can be mitigated.
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