Demonstrating continuous improvement across the DSF

The DSF Annual Sustainability Progress – 2024 Calendar Year Report was released on November 5th at the DSF Annual Meeting. Sharing key insights, DSF’s Brian Lindsay highlighted that, with more than five years of data, the DSF can now provide time-series (trend line) reporting across all 11 Sustainability Criteria.

The DSF now represents 29% of global cow and buffalo milk production, or 52% of formal global milk production. Animal Care remains the most highly prioritised criterion, followed by GHG Emissions and Rural Economies.

A major update in this year’s report is the enhanced GHG Emissions analysis, developed with Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC) using the GLEAM model and building on the previous dairy sector and GHG Emissions report published by FAO in 2019. Findings show that from 2005 to 2025, dairy cow milk production rose 53%, while improvements in Emissions Intensity limited the increase in total GHG emissions to 22%. Combining dairy cows and buffalo, milk production increased 60%, with total GHG emissions rising 31% over the same period.

As always, the annual report’s individual graphics are available for DSF Implementing, Aggregating and Stage 1 members to use. Please contact the DSF Secretariat if you would like these emailed to you.

This aggregated data is invaluable when representing the sector in climate-related discussions worldwide and could not be done without the annual reporting provided by DSF Members.

The full report is available in Chinese, English, French, Japanese, Portuguese and Spanish on the DSF website, with a translation in Hindi coming shortly.