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*Aurora Organic Dairy, a leading US provider of private label organic milk and butter, has announced a major initiative with the University of Michigan to measure and reduce its carbon footprint across the entire product lifecycle, from cattle feed to cartons in retail dairy cases. *

This research is believed to be the most comprehensive carbon emissions reduction initiative undertaken in the organic dairy industry, and will be funded by the newly established Aurora Organic Dairy Foundation.

The new Aurora Organic Dairy Foundation is a Colorado-based not-for-profit organisation that will fund research, market development initiatives and community building activities benefiting organic agriculture, including farmers, processors, consumers, animals and the environment. * Research partnership* The Foundation’s first grant of more than $320,000 will fund a long-term research partnership with the Centre for Sustainable Systems at the University of Michigan’s School of Natural Resources and Environment. With the proceeds of the grant, the centre will conduct lifecycle and sustainability research at Aurora Organic Dairy’s facilities, including its state of the art High Plains organic dairy farm in Colorado and its Coldwater organic dairy farms in Texas.

Led by associate professor Gregory Keoleian, PhD, and Martin Heller, PhD, the research will initially focus on developing an energy and carbon footprint model, creating a baseline against which Aurora Organic can make improvements in its sustainability performance.

The centre will examine the entire product lifecycle from ‘seed to shelf’, including important measures such as growing pasture and cattle feed, manufacturing, and product distribution to retail customers. The study will identify those processes that contribute the greatest environmental impacts, focused primarily on total energy consumption and carbon emissions.

In Phase II, the centre will make recommendations for improving Aurora Organic’s sustainability performance, including energy supply and demand options, non fuel-related carbon emissions, and energy and greenhouse gases from material resources such as packaging.

“Aurora Organic Dairy is providing the Centre for Sustainable Systems with an excellent opportunity to apply our research expertise and address real challenges faced by organic agriculture producers,” said CSS Co-Director and Research Team Leader, Dr Keoleian.

“This grant from the Aurora Organic Dairy Foundation to the University of Michigan is the first of many that will help fund continued research into development of organic best practices, with a strong emphasis on sustainability,” said Aurora Organic Dairy President and Chief Organic Officer, Mark Retzloff.

“Our goal is to evaluate what we do on our farms and throughout our supply chain, and to develop tools for guiding our company and enhancing our sustainability performance. We intend to learn as much as we can about how to make organic agriculture even more sustainable. Our goal is to share what we learn with our network of more than 120 family farmers and the organic agriculture community as a whole.”