Dairy industry leaders have today (23 September) announced their support for the Sustainable Dairy Partnership (SDP) at the International Dairy Federation World Dairy Summit in Istanbul, Turkey.
Representing approximately 30% of the total global milk volume, farmer cooperatives, processors, buyers and retailers have worked to formulate the initiative in a bid to foster a more sustainable dairy industry.
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“The SDP provides a unified sustainability approach to commercial relationships between dairy customers and their suppliers,” according to a statement. “It recognises and reinforces sustainability programmes that are already in place. By harmonising buyer programmes, excessive farm audits will be reduced, enabling better use of resources to work towards sustainability priorities.”
The world’s largest dairy co-op Fonterra is part of the push among 22 businesses supporting the development of the SDP, which is built on the Dairy Sustainability Framework (DSF) and its eleven criteria that tackle sustainability issues. In addition, the SDP requires all participating processors to address deforestation, animal welfare, human rights and compliance with local legislation.
Fonterra chief executive Miles Hurrell said: “The Sustainable Dairy Partnership will help recognise the hard work that our farmers have put into improving on-farm sustainability.”
The SDP has been piloted across Europe, the US and Australia and is expected to be in full use in the first half of 2020. It was created by members of the SAI Platform Dairy Working Group, which includes Danone, Netherlands-based FrieslandCampina, European dairy co-op Arla Foods, confectionery maker Mars and food giant Nestlé.
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By GlobalDataSDP offers five key stages that help processors assess where they are on sustainability. Checks are streamlined and a one-page report indicates the progress made and provides verification status and key performance indicators.
Jan Kees Vis, the global director of sustainable sourcing development at Unilever and SAI Platform president, said: “The Sustainable Dairy Partnership allows dairy suppliers to report progress on the most relevant issues. It represents a major step for the sector to move from compliance-based reporting to impact-based reporting.”
