NODES - SPOKE 6 Project FORMIDABILÆ - D3.5 Farm optimization and nLCA

The global demand for food, especially animal proteins, continues to rise due to population growth and changing dietary habits, but this trend is environmentally unsustainable. Current production models overexploit non-renewable resources, misuse water, and increase greenhouse gas emissions, while failing to reduce inequalities between developed and developing countries. Sustainable food systems are therefore needed to balance nutritional needs and environmental protection. Scientific research must focus on integrated analytical approaches that assess both nutritional and environmental aspects. The Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) method has become a key tool in this field. Recent studies highlight the importance of using functional units that reflect food’s nutritional value, rather than only mass or volume. This report applies the innovative Nutritional LCA (nLCA) approach to estimate the environmental impact of representative Italian dairy farms, expressing greenhouse gas emissions per nutritional unit of whole milk. This document is a deliverable of the project FORMIDABILÆ ("Forage system to make resilient Maize, Dairy and Biogas supply chains for a Lasting Agricultural Ecosystem"), which promotes approaches aimed at improving the smart, resilient, circular and diversified farm to ensure food security and social economic sustainability of dairy food chains with the aim of reducing greenhouse gas emissions in this sector. This document is part of the project NODES which has received funding from the MUR – Missione 4, Componente 2, Investimento 1.5 – Creazione e rafforzamento di “Ecosistemi dell’innovazione”, costruzione di “leader territoriali di R&S'' – del PNRR funded by the European Union - NextGenerationEU with grant agreement no. ECS00000036