Sustainability
The unglamorous work that actually moves the numbers
Most of what makes a dairy farm greener happens in the slurry store, the feed trough and the milk cooling system. None of it photographs well, so we would rather explain it plainly than put a leaf on a label.
Where the effort goes
Manure, energy, emissions and water. Everything else we do follows from getting these four right.
Manure
Slurry is separated on four farms into a thick fraction we compost into cubicle bedding and a thin, nitrogen-rich fraction we inject shallowly into grassland in spring. Injecting instead of broadcasting cuts ammonia loss by around two-thirds and means the nitrogen reaches the root zone when grass is actually growing.
68% less ammonia
Energy
Seven barn and shed roofs carry 1.9 MWp of solar, which covers most of our daytime milking and cooling load in summer. Plate coolers drop milk from 37°C to around 18°C with well water before the compressors do the rest, and that warmed water is piped straight to drinking troughs rather than run to waste.
1.9 MWp installed
Emissions
Rations are balanced on protein so cows are not excreting nitrogen they never needed, and we have cut bought-in soy to near zero in favour of home-grown grass, maize and rapeseed meal. A low-emission floor at Hoeve Ede is being measured over two full years before we commit to rolling it out.
−14% CO₂e per kg of milk since 2019
Water and soil
At Hoeve Sneek we hold the water table higher in the peat meadow to slow soil oxidation, which costs us some grazing days in a wet spring and saves a great deal of carbon. Parlour wash water is collected and used on the yards. Buffer strips along every ditch keep slurry and fertiliser out of the water.
Raised water table on 112 ha of peat
Six years of changes, in order
We have made mistakes along the way — the first separator we bought was too small for the volume and we replaced it inside eighteen months. This is the honest sequence.
- 2019
Baseline measured
First full carbon and nitrogen footprint across all eleven farms, done with an independent adviser so we had a real number to argue with rather than an estimate.
- 2021
Slurry separation
Separators installed at Lunteren and Bolsward. Composted solids replaced bought-in sawdust for cubicle bedding on both farms within a season.
- 2022
Solar and plate coolers
Rooftop solar reached 1.9 MWp across seven farms; plate coolers retrofitted on the three yards that still lacked them.
- 2023
Low-emission floor trial
Hoeve Ede fitted a low-emission floor with slurry scrapers. Ammonia is being measured over two full years before any group-wide decision.
- 2025
Soy out, home-grown in
Bought-in soy reduced to under 2% of the total ration, replaced with our own grass and maize silage plus European rapeseed meal.
- 2027
What we are aiming at
A further 10% cut in CO₂e per kilo of milk, all eleven farms below the DDDA action threshold every quarter, and grazing days above 190 on the group average.
What we will not claim
We are not a carbon-neutral farm
Ruminants produce methane. No amount of solar on a barn roof changes that, and we are not going to buy offsets and call the problem solved.
What we can do is produce each litre with less: less bought-in feed, less wasted nitrogen, less fossil energy, fewer cows culled early because a preventable health problem shortened their lives. A cow that lasts five lactations instead of three is one of the largest single emissions savings available to a dairy farm, and it happens to be the same thing as looking after her properly.
Our full figures go to buyers each quarter. If you want the underlying data rather than the summary, ask and we will send it.