Life Cycle Assessment of Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Livestock Production

Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a methodological framework for quantifying greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with all stages of livestock production, from feed cultivation and on-farm activities to processing, distribution and end-use. In livestock systems, major sources of emissions include enteric methane from ruminant digestion, nitrous oxide from manure and fertiliser applications, carbon dioxide from energy use and land-use change. System boundaries may be cradle-to-farm-gate, cradle-to-processor or cradle-to-grave, with functional units ranging from per kilogram liveweight or carcass weight to per kilogram of protein-corrected product. Allocation of emissions among co-products, such as meat, milk and hides, influences comparative assessments across species and production systems. Recent advances have improved the inclusion of soil carbon sequestration, teleconnected land-use changes and high-resolution farm data, revealing that grazing management, feed composition and regional production practices can alter net GHG footprints by up to tens of per cent. LCA in livestock is integral to the development of mitigation strategies, informing supply-chain decisions, policy instruments and consumer guidance. However, methodological choices—such as impact metrics, allocation rules and boundary definitions—require harmonisation to enhance comparability and support global net-zero targets.

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Life Cycle Assessment of Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Livestock Production publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in life cycle assessment of greenhouse gas emissions in livestock production across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Life cycle assessment (LCA): A standardised methodology for evaluating environmental impacts associated with all stages of a product’s life cycle.

Global warming potential (GWP): A metric that expresses the radiative forcing of different greenhouse gases relative to carbon dioxide over a specified time horizon, typically 100 years.

Functional unit: A quantified reference unit—for example, one kilogram of product—used to enable comparison between systems in an LCA.

Allocation: The method of partitioning environmental burdens among co-products in a multi-output process.

Enteric methane: Methane produced by the microbial fermentation of feed in the digestive systems of ruminant animals.

Soil carbon sequestration: The process by which carbon is captured and stored in soil organic matter under specific land management practices.

References

1. Net zero roadmap modelling for sustainable dairy manufacturing and distribution. Chemical Engineering Journal (2023).
2. Impacts of soil carbon sequestration on life cycle greenhouse gas emissions in Midwestern USA beef finishing systems. Agricultural Systems (2018).
3. Mapping the carbon footprint of milk production from cattle: A systematic review. Journal of Dairy Science (2022).