Genetic improvement to lower the environmental impact of beef production
Client
Often, we hear about using LCA to compare scenarios in the context of product design. If we choose this material instead of that, what would be the effect on our product’s environmental impact? Today’s case study is about a very different kind of ‘product design’ – finding the potential impact reductions of improving the genetics of cattle.
About
ABS Global is a USA-based company, the world-leading provider of bovine genetics, reproduction services, technologies, and udder care products. They are committed to continuously developing better cattle for farmers by selecting animals with desirable characteristics that help them to produce higher quality meat and milk more sustainably and profitably.
Challenge
Since 2014, ABS has been working to improve the profitability of the beef value chain through its NuEra genetics breeding program. This breeding initiative aims to optimize beef performance in both beef-on-dairy (BxD – beef bull mated with dairy cow) and beef-on-beef (BxB – beef bull mated with beef cow) production systems.
Improving livestock production efficiency has a well-established connection to a reduced environmental footprint [1], [2]. ABS now wanted to quantify the environmental impact of genetic improvement in BxD systems, particularly in relation to NuEra genetics. Their approach: comparing NuEra genetics with benchmark BxD genetics using life cycle assessment (LCA).
ABS also recognized the need to build internal LCA expertise, so they can independently interpret results, guide future research, and apply these insights in strategic decision-making.
Adding complexity to the challenge, it is difficult to isolate the effect of genetic improvement: farm management practices also significantly influence environmental impact. Capturing the true influence of genetics required developing a new methodology that could isolate the genetic effect to account for genetics in LCA models.
ABS defined three core goals for the project:
- Quantifying the environmental impacts of NuEra genetics on commercial BxD production, in comparison with benchmark BxD genetics in the US and UK.
- Assessing the potential future benefits of genetic improvement: both of ongoing improvements within NuEra lines and of comparisons between NuEra-sired and benchmark animals.
- Strengthening in-house LCA capabilities to support data-driven decision-making, enabling the ABS team to run and interpret models independently.
Solution
PRé conducted a comparative LCA study that assessed three NuEra populations against their respective national benchmark averages. The model considered the entire beef-on-dairy production cycle and key environmental impact categories.
Key steps included:
- Working with ABS to develop a new method to integrate genetic improvement data into the LCA framework, to separate the effects of farm management factors and genetics.
- Building a custom LCA model in SimaPro that ABS could use after project completion.
- Running comparative analyses of environmental impacts across multiple categories, identifying key drivers such as enteric fermentation, manure management, and feed production.
- Conducting scenario assessments for both current and future genetic improvement trajectories, showing how higher-merit genetics could reduce climate change impacts by up to 10% by 2029 when the full genetic potential is realized.
To ensure knowledge transfer, ABS joined our training course on Effective LCA with SimaPro Craft. We also held a full model hand-over session that enabled ABS to explore the model, test new scenarios, and apply the method to future projects independently.
Benefits
Future environmental advantage
The study found that NuEra genetics delivers a small reduction in environmental impacts compared to the benchmark BxD genetics in nearly all impact categories. Scenario modelling showed that with continued selection for higher-tier genetics, NuEra is likely to achieve higher reduction in climate change impacts by 2029 as the breeding program continues to deliver increasingly higher-quality genetics, securing long-term potential sustainability and performance benefits.
Clear identification of impact drivers
The analysis highlighted key data indicators that have a high influence on the footprint. This allowed ABS to understand how the direction of genetic improvement through the NuEra breeding program might help reduce potential environmental impacts.
Internal capability building
Through targeted training and model hand-over, ABS gained the skills to:
- Interpret LCA outputs in detail
- Modify and run the model for future scenarios
- Integrate LCA thinking into R&D and business planning
Long-term sustainability advantage
The project confirmed that investing in higher-level genetics, when matched with appropriate farm management, can deliver lasting improvements in both performance and environmental outcomes. This positions ABS to share NuEra’s effect on the environmental footprint during conversations across the value chain and understand the scope of their influence on the environmental impact of the beef-on-dairy sector.
If you want to know more about this approach, please check out the following page.
PRé took on the challenge of modeling a very complex production system head on. They were adept at taking our goals from this project and translating them into an LCA model that met our needs while guiding us through the iterative development process and subsequent ISO review. The LCA model PRe has built will provide the foundation for credible environmental footprinting of genetic improvement from the NuEra breeding program.
Ellen Lai, Bovine Sustainability Scientist at Genus ABS Global
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