Sustainability in the dairy industry: a systematic literature review

The dairy industry can contribute to global food security in a sustainable way by efficiently converting milk into dairy ingredients and products, even though they are polluting on a large scale. In this context, this study aimed to conduct a systematic literature review on sustainable indicators and dairy industries. The methodology used has a qualitative and quantitative approach and its technical procedure was the systematic literature review. The bases of journals consulted, using the keywords “sustainability indicator” and “dairy industry” which resulted in 130 valid scientific articles. The main results show that the sustainability indicators in the dairy industry are emerging and lacking research; being found seven papers, that highlight 12 indicators of the environmental, 11 of the social and eight economic dimensions, that may be considered fragile and initial. The studied problems are related to wastewater treatment methods, electric power consumption, efficiency of the industrial plant, among others, and the benefits on the theme are related to solutions to the difficulties, such as electricity reduction, sustainable practices. Among others, it is concluded that the dairy industries address the sustainability theme since 2011, with an ambiguous trend, being found evidence of the fragility of the sustainability indicators was found, mainly in the initial stage of their conception, when considering holistic approach (triple bottom line).