Valorization of CO2 reductions in the dairy industry
Brief description
The raw milk produced in Schleswig-Holstein - that is around 3 billion kg per year and thus 9.5% of the total raw milk produced in Germany (BLE, 2024) - causes around 3.3 million tons of CO2 equivalent (CO2e) per year. This means that the dairy industry accounts for a significant proportion of agricultural greenhouse gas emissions. It is a declared goal to reduce CO2e emissions. Both within the framework of international climate protection measures and through German federal regulations. In this HAW Kiel project, a concept is being developed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the dairy industry. The plan is to valorize the avoidance of emissions in order to create a financial incentive for dairy farms to reduce their CO2e emissions in milk production in a certification model. The team wants to answer the following questions: How high are the CO2e emissions on individual farms in Schleswig-Holstein? What reduction options exist? What avoidance costs per kg CO2e are associated with this? What financial incentive does the dairy farm need to implement a CO2e reduction measure? What is the willingness to buy and demand for voluntary carbon certificates in the dairy industry in order to provide financial incentives for dairy farms to reduce CO2e emissions? And finally: What could a concept for the valorization of CO2e emission avoidance and reduction for the dairy industry look like? The implementation could then be tested as a model project within the framework of a European Innovation Project (EIP).