Socioeconomic LCA of Milk Production in Canada

Abstract

Over the years, the agricultural sector, and the livestock and dairy sectors in particular, have been increasingly criticized for their environmental impacts, especially with regard to greenhouse gas emissions. At the same time, there has been a growing awareness that farm activities equally induce significant social and economic impacts over a wide range of stakeholders. In order to face the new challenges arising from this context and to clarify the path towards sustainable milk production in Canada, the Dairy Farmers of Canada (DFC) commissioned the realization of a Social and Environmental Life Cycle Assessment (SELCA) of Canadian Milk. Launched in 2010, this project, which ended in September 2012, was conducted as part of the Dairy Research Cluster. The study was conducted by three partners, two consulting firms (Groupe AGECO and Quantis) and a research center (CIRAIG), based at the Montreal Polytechnic, with a section dedicated to socioecomic life cycle assessment based at the University of Quebec in Montreal. It aimed at providing a comprehensive assessment of the Canadian milk production sector with respect to sustainability. The main deliverables include an environmental profile of the average kilogram of milk produced in Canada, as well as an evaluation of the socioeconomic performance of the Canadian dairy sector. This chapter addresses the social and socioeconomic dimensions of the global project. It presents the methodological choices made, such as combining a specific analysis and a potential hotspots analysis (PHA) for two parts of the system under study. It then presents the economic contributions of the Canadian dairy sector, which has generated over 127,000 direct, indirect and induced jobs in 2009, contributed approximately $7.2 billion to the national GDP, and procured almost $1.4 billion in total tax revenue. Canadian dairy farmers are also corporate citizens whose behaviors—individually and collectively—impact their stakeholders. This SLCA provides a detailed picture of this socioeconomic performance. It appears from this assessment that the Canadian dairy farms perform positively overall. The dairy farmers’ engagement towards their local communities is significant, with the vast majority involved in their communities in many different ways. However, more could be done in terms of cohabitation, with producers adopting practices minimizing the spreading of odors, for example. The picture is also contrasted with regard to farm workers. Although dairy farmers provide overall working conditions that go beyond labor standards—to which they are mostly not legally subjected—there is room for improvement regarding various issues, such as professional training and communication of working conditions. The same holds true with respect to their suppliers and business partners, given that a majority of dairy producers do not usually consider their suppliers’ performance in regards to social responsibility in their procurement decisions.

AGECO is a Quebec (Canada)-based consulting firm established in 2000 as a spin-off from Laval University in Quebec City by a group of professors well recognized in Quebec and Canada in the domain of socioeconomic analysis applied to the agrifood sector, natural resources, and the environment. AGECO performs impact assessment studies, policy and regulatory analyses, socioeconomic studies, surveys, structural analyses, studies of management tools as well as strategic channel planning. First and foremost, AGECO is a team trained in economics and the social sciences, specializing in agrifood, and natural and environmental resources. The team is known for its ability to understand the socioeconomic, political and strategic situations. Over the last 5 years, AGECO has developed expertise in SLCA, both in theory and practice.

The Interuniversity Research Centre for the Life Cycle of Products, Processes, and Services (CIRAIG) was founded initially by the École Polytechnique de Montréal, in collaboration with the Université de Montréal and HEC Montréal. The CIRAIG was created to meet the demands of industry and governments to develop leading-edge academic expertise on sustainable development tools. The CIRAIG now includes a team from the Department of Strategy, Social and Environmental Responsibility that is located within the School of Management Sciences of the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQÀM). This team deals specifically with the social and socioeconomic dimensions of life cycle assessment. The CIRAIG is the only university research centre on life cycle in Canada; it is also one of the largest internationally. It hosts the International Life Cycle Chair, supported by 14 industrial partners.