The Dairy Working Group

The Dairy Working Group is made up of a group of buyers and processors working towards sector transformation initiatives.

We do this by enabling our members to collaborate and create innovative approaches that demonstrate continuous improvement in sustainability at farm level.

When it comes to sustainability and responsible sourcing, the dairy sector faces multiple challenges. This includes numerous codes and standards, different sets of metrics to measure impact and the difficulty of quantifying outcomes. In most cases this can result in the industry lacking the direction to address issues and challenges.

The Sustainable Dairy Partnership

To promote alignment and recognise and reinforce existing approaches at national and company levels, we have developed the Sustainable Dairy Partnership: Business to Business to streamline the relationship between buyers and processors. The Sustainable Dairy Partnership (SDP) is built on the Dairy Sustainability Framework (DSF) and its Global Criteria on 11 sustainability principles.

Using existing structures and leveraging dairy processor management systems that are already in place – as well as relationships with farmers – the SDP enables processors to provide evidence and show continuous improvement.

The SDP aims to reduce audit fatigue and save costs by using existing resources to deliver direct benefits across the value chain.