Environmental Stewardship

Built around the simple idea of making a difference in the world, sustainibeef is proud to practice environmental stewardship while effectively producing high-quality, direct-to-your-doorstop beef that delivers all the savory, healthy proteins and fats, with a 50% lower carbon footprint emissions on the environment.

Though we're pretty good at raising premium-quality sustainibeef, when it comes to climate science, we prefer to leave the research to the professionals.

Climate scientists use a method of research called a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) that accounts for emissions throughout the entire supply chain. LCAs are the gold standard for carbon footprint comparisons in many industries - not just food production. Highly sensitive and expansive models enable researchers to isolate individual variables to analyze their emission impact.

UC Davis Researchers Found the Following:

  • The majority of the CO2 emissions associated with beef production are attributed to the cows that produce the steers, not the steers themselves.
  • Steers resulting from a dual-purpose Holstein cow herd have a tremendously lower level of CO2 equivalent (CO2e) emission than steers resulting from a traditional beef background - both with and without a stocking phase.
  • More accurate biogenic calculations that include the recycling of livestock manure as carbon-sequestering fertilizer provide a much lower net CO2e impact than previously attributed to beef production.

Study Findings

Because our supply chain combines Angus genetics with a California-based Holstein mother-cow herd, the environmental footprint described in the study is undoubtedly representative of sustainibeef's CO2e output.

Citation

Stackhouse-Lawson KR, Rotz CA, Oltjen JW, Mitloehner FM. Carbon footprint and ammonia emissions of California beef production systems. J Anim Sci. 2012 Dec;90(12):4641-55. doi: 10.2527/jas.2011-4653. Epub 2012 Sep 5. PMID: 22952361.