Published in May 2008, Defra's Milk Roadmap set out steps the dairy industry, with support from Defra, intends to take to reduce the effects milk production has on the environment. The road map covers a wide range of activities including water use, packaging, waste and environmental stewardship.

The goal for GHG emissions is to reduce emissions by 20-30% by 2020. There are actions planned for the milk processing sector, refrigeration etc but these represent a very small proportion of overall milk GHG emissions. Also, the Milk Roadmap considers practical and achievable ways of reducing the environmental impacts associated with liquid milk using current patterns of production and consumption. The report does not consider alterations to the size of the dairy sector.

You can read the press release here.

For more on the contribution of the meat and dairy sector to greenhouse gas emissions, and some of the problems associated with current mitigation approaches you might want to have a look at the FCRN paper on the subject which you can download here.