A move to assess and benchmark the global environmental footprint of animal feed has been backed by FEFAC, the European animal feed body, which has joined sister organisations in the United States and Canada in launching the Global Feed LCA Institute (GFLI).
“Given the significant share of feed production in the environmental footprint of animal products, feed is a key area where emission mitigation strategies can be developed,” said FEFAC president, Ruud Tijssens, adding that the compound feed industry is looking to “drive towards measuring environmental performance with great confidence”.
The aim of GFLI is to “provide a freely accessible and transparent life cycle assessment database of feed ingredients, allowing for globally harmonised assessments and benchmarking of environmental footprint calculations of feed manufacturing”.
In addition to FEFAC’s partnership with the US and Canada on this development, GFLI is designed to be compliant with the Product Environmental Footprint project which is being coordinated by the European Commission.
The EU-based part of GFLI is set to be ready by summer 2016.