Primary agricultural production is responsible for the majority share of the environmental impact of dairy products. Much lesser impacts arise from processing, packaging and transport. For this reason, the Andechser Molkerei Scheitz, an organic dairy processor, established the KlimaBauer initiative to specifically address the improvement of the carbon footprint of its suppliers, the dairy farms.
The Institute of Agroecology takes on the role of scientific partner in this project, working together with FiBL Austria.
As the first step, we survey the current status of the KlimaBauer farms in telephone interviews and calculate their current carbon footprint (individual farm carbon footprint) in tonnes of CO2 equivalents. To this end, we developed our own climate calculator tool based on the BEK (Berechnungsstandard für einzelbetriebliche Klimabilanzen − calculation standard for individual farm carbon footprints).
During a farm visit, and based on the survey data, possible reduction measures are presented, discussed and adapted to the farm in question.

Subsequently, the savings potential of the selected measures is calculated and made available to the climate farmers in the form of a report containing a list of measures, their savings potential and a brief description.
The proposed measures include both CO2 avoidance measures (in the areas of housing and manure management, the production of base rations and concentrated feed, reduction of fossil fuel consumption and use of renewable energies) and CO2 sequestration measures (e.g. undersown crops, catch crops, agroforestry, etc.).
Based on the farm report, the climate farmers together with the milk processor then determine the measures to be implemented and the resulting amount of greenhouse gas savings. For each avoided or sequestered tonne of CO2 equivalents the Andechser dairy pays out EUR 10 to the climate farmers. After 2 or 5 years respectively, the implementation of the measures is reviewed and the savings are confirmed by means of an updated carbon footprint.
Our project’s aim is to further develop climate-friendly farming and help safeguard fertile and productive soils for future generations.