KlimaStaR Milk draws positive conclusions and lays the foundation for the future

KlimaStaR Milk is a cross-industry initiative launched by Emmi, Nestlé, aaremilch, ZMP and AgroCleanTech in 2022 with the support of the Swiss Federal Office for Agriculture. The project to promote climate protection, adaptation to local conditions and resource efficiency in milk production aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and competition for feed-food and land by 20% in both cases by 2027. At the end of 2025, 219 dairy farms with an annual production of around 73 million kilograms of milk took part.

Positive development continues

The results of the project’s fourth year validate the path taken. Farms are increasingly relying on animal feed that does not compete with human nutrition, reducing feed-food competition by around 23% since the start of the project. The original target of 20% has thus already been exceeded. Competition for land also continued to decline and is now 15% below the baseline figure, a development that is clearly a step in the right direction. Today, farms produce more milk and animal protein in the same area or in one that is only slightly larger. Progress has been particularly marked at farms in the valley zone.

Greenhouse gas emissions per kilogram of milk have been reduced by around 8% on a relative basis since the start of the project. However, achieving further reductions is challenging for farms, as they involve high investments and long planning horizons, amongst other things. In addition, the baseline values for greenhouse gas emissions in Switzerland were lower than originally assumed and are also lower than the international average, making further progress more difficult to achieve.

By adjusting their milk production systems, farms were able to reduce emissions per kilogram of milk by 66 grams of CO₂ equivalents in 2025. While absolute emissions increased slightly due to higher overall milk production since the start of the project, emissions remained lower than they would have been without the measures implemented. Extrapolated to the 73 million kilograms of milk produced, this corresponds to a reduction of almost 5,000 tonnes of CO₂ equivalent compared with the original production system.

In the remaining two years of the project, the farms will be supported by individual guidance and tailored advice on exploiting further potential for reduction. To this end, those farms that have already succeeded in significantly lowering their greenhouse gas emissions whilst at the same time reducing competition for feed-food and land are sharing their experiences with the other participants.

Dairy industry prepares application throughout Switzerland

The positive results of the KlimaStaR Milk project are encouraging the industry to further expand its commitment to climate protection, adaptation to local conditions and resource efficiency in milk production. Based on the project findings, the industry organisation Milch (BOM) has developed a climate calculator that has been available to all milk producers in Switzerland since July 2026. This allows farms to calculate their greenhouse gas emissions as well as the feed-food competition of their milk production and to determine optimisation measures.

By using the methods developed in the project, the dairy industry is laying the foundation for applying the progress achieved at national level, beyond the project farms. It is thus making a tangible contribution to the objectives for Swiss agriculture up to 2050 that have been adopted by the Federal Council. These include more climate-friendly production as well as the increased use of grass and by-products from food production.