Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment Of The Milk Industry Chains In Ulan Buh Desert

With the improvement of people’s living standards,people begin to pay attention to the consumption of milk and dairy products.At the same time,in the context of the growing global demand for milk and changes in agricultural policies,the sustainable development of the milk industry is becoming more and more important.Based on this,16 typical milk industry chains including 5 organic milk enterprises（OE）,6 conventional milk enterprises（CE）and 5 conventional milk cooperatives（CC）in Ulan Buh Desert of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region were selected as case study objects from different production modes and production scales.Using the Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment method,its sustainability is assessed from the environmental,economic and social levels.The main research contents and results are as follows:At the environmental level,the environmental life cycle assessment（E-LCA）method was applied to conduct an environmental impact assessment on the industrial chain.The results show that the environmental impact of CE is the largest,and the environmental impact of OE and CC is relatively small.In each industrial chain,the silage corn planting and dairy farming stages have a greater contribution to each type of environmental impact.Among multiple environmental impact types,GWP is the main environmental impact type of each industrial chain,and the stages that contribute more to it are silage corn planting and milk processing.The main reason is the consumption of electricity,diesel oil,pesticides and fertilizers during silage corn planting and the use of diesel oil,electricity and steam during milk processing.At the economic level,life cycle cost（LCC）method was used to evaluate the economic sustainability of milk industry chain.The results showed that the total cost of OE was the highest,reaching 7.94 times and 29.79 times of CE and CC,respectively.The profitability,profit level,efficiency,production capacity and net profit capacity of OE were the lowest,while CC and CE were the highest.Among them,CC have the highest net income and economic productivity,and CE have the highest profit margin.OE should strengthen cost control,avoid waste in raw material procurement and energy use,and increase profits.At the social level,the social life cycle assessment（S-LCA）was applied to evaluate the social sustainability of the milk industry chain from six aspects: worker A,consumer B,local community C,society D,value chain participant E and government F.The results showed that the average scores of OE,CE and CC were between 0.88-0.93,0.71-0.84 and 0.57-0.64,respectively.The overall social benefits of OE were the highest,but the satisfaction of additional wage incentives was low,and the development of public welfare undertakings was insufficient.CE and CC have low social benefits and negative contributions to public welfare undertakings and local technological development,so they should pay more attention to their contributions to social development.Comprehensive comparison of environmental,economic and social benefits of different industrial chains shows that OE perform relatively well in environmental and social aspects,CE perform better in the economic level and CC perform better on environmental and economic levels.Therefore,it is necessary for the three industrial chains to learn from each other,and identify the shortcomings of them in environmental,economic and social aspects and give suggestions for improvement,so as to promote the sustainable development of the milk industry.