Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Sustainability Assessment Of U.S. Beef Production Systems, Greg Thoma, Ben Putman, Marty Matlock, Jennie Popp, Leah English

Food Systems

With increasing public concern and awareness of agricultural sustainability issues, comprehensive methodologies such as life cycle assessment are required to benchmark the beef industry and identify areas of opportunity for continuous improvement. To that end, the Beef Checkoff completed a retrospective sustainability assessment benchmark in 2013 by using Eco-efficiency analysis to compare the years 2005 and 2011. At the time of the analysis, the methodology used was the most up-to-date and comprehensive – indeed the analysis remains one of the only complete cradle-to-grave assessments of the U.S. beef industry. In 2015, a further refined version of the Eco-efficiency analysis was …