Environmental Life Cycle Assessment of goat cheese production in Brazil: a path towards sustainability

This study aims to analyse the environmental impacts of goat milk and goat cheese production using the Life Cycle Assessment - LCA methodology based on the International Organization for Standardization ISO 14040:2006 and ISO 14044:2006 (ISO 2006a, b). A cradle to gate LCA study was performed in a dairy industry, located at Sao Goncalo municipality, Rio de Janeiro state, Brazil. The modelling software used was Simapro (R) 8.3.0.0 with Ecoinvent 3.2 database, employing the methodology ILCD 2011 Midpoint for impact assessment. The results showed that the most relevant impacts were associated with goat milk production, specifically soybean, which is the main ingredient of goat feed. The partial substitution of soybean by hay and grass in goat feed is recommended, as lower environmental impacts were observed especially for the impact categories climate change (57.6%), freshwater ecotoxicity (41.8%), land use (47.1%) and mineral, fossil and renewable resources depletion (40.4%). However, further studies are needed to determine the potential environmental and economic trade-offs from different diet strategies.