Meat&Poultry - March 2011 - 28

SUSTAINABILITY

The most important sustainability issue for the global beef supply chain
Food Nutrition and Food Safety 25.25% Land Management 21.21%

Energy 2.02% Labor and Business 3.03% Community 6.06% Bio-diverse Populations 9.09%
Source: The Global Conference on Sustainable Beef

Water Access and Quality 20.20%

Greenhouse Gas Emission 13.13%

not feasible in their operations and communities. Each question includes links to information about potential programs and practices under way within the industry.

Quantifying sustainability
On a broader level, 60 stakeholders from the global beef system gathered in Washington, DC, last June at the first Beef Lifecycle Assessment (LCA) Working Group. As noted earlier, the group identified seven key impacts. It also listed seven key “takeaways” that resulted from its discussions about LCAs. To further their utility, beef LCAs should include all relevant impacts in addition to greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs), said the group. LCAs should also be able to access a common database that is unique to the beef supply system and readily accessible to multiple stakeholders. They should have equally transparent input assumptions and sensitivity/ confidence level of outputs. The group offered seven other points about sustainability. Relatively few beef LCAs have been developed and significant variations in LCA methodology exist, it said. So there is a need to identify and close the significant gap in open-sourced data. The identification and prioritization of impacts of beef should be

highlighted in an LCA. A scan of LCAs can provide insights for use by the beef industry to highlight the positive impacts and address negatives. Consistent allocation of impacts across beef and the resulting co-products is needed to provide the users of LCAs with clear expectations of how the output was created. Approximately 80 percent of emissions originate before harvesting the animal. Finally, other tools are avail-

Sustainability has become increasingly central to the way US meat and poultry companies conduct business.
able and may be more appropriate to answer questions, the group said. The initial meeting set the stage for a tour of the US beef industry by some of the meeting’s participants. The tour included a retail distribution center, a beef processing plant, a cattle feedlot, a gasifier operation and a seedstock ranch. The group listed five key takeaways from the tour, including: understanding the challenges and trade-offs that exist in sustainability efforts (e.g. food safety vs. water use); the drive for improved sustainability

creates opportunities for innovation; pre-competitive collaboration by industry to find solutions; critical nature of the beef system being aligned in its focus; genetic improvements in cattle breeding to improve efficiency, animal health and beef quality take many years and significant investment. The Global Conference on Sustainable Beef in November convened all elements of the global beef supply chain and a diverse array of other key stakeholders, including academics, scientists and NGO leaders for a dialogue about the current state of sustainability in the beef industry. The conference, according to reports, produced robust feedback centered on the “triple bottom line”, to be environmentally, socially and economically sustainable. At the conference’s conclusion, its hosts challenged participants to incorporate this feedback to develop on-theground programs that enhance sustainable beef, driven by new relationships developed at the conference. One important takeaway was identification of key issues. When participants were asked what is the most important sustainability issue for the global beef supply chain, the responses broke down as follows: food nutrition and food safety, 25 percent; land management, 21 percent; water access and quality, 20 percent; greenhouse gas emission, 13 percent; bio-diverse populations, 9 percent; community, 6 percent; labor and business, 3 percent; and energy, 2 percent. Three issues thus accounted for two-thirds of the responses. These impact every part of the global beef supply chain and the US meat and poultry industry. The responses provide important guidelines as to what the industry will focus on to further improve its sustainability. ■
Steve Kay is editor and publisher of Petaluma, Calif.-based Cattle Buyers Weekly (www. cattlebuyersweekly.com ). We would like to hear from you – to comment on this story or to request reprints, contact us by e-mail at meatpoultry@sosland.com.

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