At the recent 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, Scotland, the United States announced that it would join the international Global Methane Pledge, which aims to limit methane emissions by 30%, compared to 2020 levels, by 2030. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that the U.S. dairy industry is already tackling.
The dairy industry launched the Net Zero Initiative in 2020, a five-year effort to fill research gaps and make sustainable practices and technologies more accessible and affordable to U.S. dairy farms of all sizes and geographies. U.S. dairy updated its public-facing environmental goals to achieve greenhouse gas neutrality, optimize water use while maximizing recycling, and improve water quality by optimizing utilization of manure and nutrients, according to the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy.