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Neutral
119 w
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Our dairy-ing change in milk production
At Neutral, we want to make it easy for Americans to make climate-friendly choices in their everyday lives.
We do this by providing carbon-neutral dairy products nationwide – while at the same time adding environmental benefits to our farmers.
“We are meeting Americans where they are, and that’s really where the impact is”, says CEO Marcus Lovell Smith during a presentation at the Climate Week NYC event ”The Road to COP27”, which was broadcast live to more than ten million people in over 100 countries.
There are many climate impacts associated with milk outside of your refrigerator, but does this need to be the case with all dairy products? At Neutral, we certainly don’t think so. We know – and have scientifically proven – that dairy farming practices can be improved to benefit the environment without altering the delicious taste of dairy.
Our mission is to revolutionize the dairy industry and lead by example. At Neutral, we are reducing methane emissions of dairy farms and providing consumers with a climate-conscientious choice in the grocery aisle. We do this by taking the carbon footprint out of dairy and reducing it by implementing better climate farming practices and working only with verified carbon offsetting organizations to reduce climate emissions that cannot be effectively recycled or repurposed on dairy farms.
At We Don’t Have Time’s Climate Week NYC broadcast, “The Road to COP27”, we had our Head of Carbon Reduction, Ann Radil, and CEO Marcus Lovell Smith engage in a fireside chat with climate behavioral scientist Dr. Sweta Chakraborty, US President of We Don’t Have Time. They discussed the role of dairy in the climate crisis and how consumers can make a climate impact with their decisions without overhauling their diets.
(From left to right) Ann Radil, Head of Carbon Reduction and Marcus Lovell Smith, CEO, sitting with Dr. Sweta Chakraborty, President of US Operations for We Don’t Have Time.
Meeting people where they are today
Approximately 150 million households around the world are engaged in milk production, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). When talking about the number of people who consume milk and milk products, the figure estimated by the FAO jumps to 6 billion people. Changing the decisions of households around the world and dietary habits represents a huge hurdle in reaching global climate goals.
Marcus Lovell Smith, is keenly aware of the impact of dairy and the importance of implementing climate action by meeting people where they are today. Having a complete lifestyle overhaul can be hard, but offering consumers easy alternatives to make their daily decisions less impactful on the environment is an important step toward reaching climate targets.
Behind China, the USA has the largest carbon footprint representing 14% of global emissions. Tapping into changing Americans’ lifestyle choices through the “seemingly” small actions of having climate-friendly dairy will impact global climate goals. The first step to creating climate-friendly lifestyle choices is to start small and make it easy for people to adopt them.
“We are meeting Americans where they are, and that’s really where the impact is. We are working directly with dairy farmers and beef ranchers to change the course of agriculture. It’s a portfolio of solutions and it’s very important we directly address animal-based proteins”, says Lovell Smith.
In addition to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, these solutions also yield co-benefits for the producers. Neutral’s on-farm projects improve profitability, soil health and resilience, increase efficiency, and in some cases, bring new revenue streams for the farmers.
“We are meeting Americans where they are, and that’s really where the impact is” - Marcus Lovell Smith, CEO of Neutral.
The Solutions
So what do Neutral’s climate solutions look like? During the “The Road to COP27” broadcast, our Head of Carbon Reduction at Neutral, Ann Radil, gave Dr. Sweta Chakraborty a quick rundown of how Neutral is going about climate solutions.
These are just some of the many climate-friendly things we try to implement on dairy farms:
1. Reducing Enteric methane (the byproduct of digestion itself) – Neutral is developing projects that integrate naturally occurring secondary metabolites (Tannins) into forage and hay, so when cows eat, cows are not only healthier, but methane emissions are also reduced.
2. Managing manure on farms – Neutral works side-by-side with farmers to enable them to efficiently and easily go about composting manure to reduce methane emissions. This also means less environmentally harmful cow farts and cow burps.
3. Changing how cow feed is produced – Neutral works with dairy farmers to have them adopt regenerative farming practices. The benefit of regenerative farming practices improve soil health and increase the potential of long-term soil carbon storage.
4. Feeding cows small amounts of seaweed supplement – Researchers have found that supplementing cow feed with seaweed can reduce methane by more than 82%.
Ann Radil, our Head of Carbon Reduction, told the global We Don’t Have Time audience what Neutral’s climate solutions are.
Watch the whole We Don’t Have Time Climate Week NYC broadcast and view Neutral’s segment with Ann and Marcus:
https://youtu.be/bo5jL_K5BQs?t=4101
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101 w
Definitely a viable alternative
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119 w
I don't generally consume dairy but this can be a good alternative for people that can't go without dairy products
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119 w
Great work, Neutral!