The project LIFE TTGG – The Tough Get Going (meaning “tough” the cheeses covered by the project) aims to improve the supply chain efficiency of European hard and semi-hard PDO cheeses by designing and developing a software – Environmental Decision Support System (EDSS), in order to assess and reduce its Product Environmental Footprint.
This software will be calibrated, validated and tested on Grana Padano PDO and on Comté PDO. It will then be proposed as a reference for other EU PDO cheeses Consortia. The French dairy organization, CNIEL, a project partner, will be responsible to test the software on French PDO cheeses.
Specific project objectives include:
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developing effective methodologies for calculating and reducing Product Environmental Footprint, tailored to a wide range of hard or semi-hard cheeses;
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making it easier to calculate and reduce the Product Environmental Footprint through user-friendly tools;
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spreading the Product Environmental Footprint among PDO consortia in order to increase the number of individual producers certifying their cheese products;
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optimising of both environmental and economic performances in farms, dairies and packaging producers (with Product Environmental Footprint reduction measures);
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increasing stakeholder and consumer know-how about the Product Environmental Footprint, providing sound, reliable and simple information, which could also be used for green public procurement.
The results of the LIFE TTGG project will be a useful contribution to the implementation of European environmental policies, particularly towards a Europe where the correct use of resources and the so-called “circular economy”, which foresee Product Environmental Footprint as a common method of measuring environmental performance, are becoming increasingly relevant.
The LIFE TTGG project also represents an opportunity to test Product Environmental Footprint Category Rules (PEFCR) and feed into policy. These rules are aimed at providing detailed technical guidance on how to conduct a Product Environmental Footprint study: the rules on dairy are currently under development and still need to be consulted upon and examined by the review panel.