Dairy cattle farming and therefore dairy products too are considered to be damaging to the climate. Nevertheless, milk has four stars in the area of climate. How can this be the case?

At first glance, this may indeed seem counterintuitive. The milk industry in Switzerland is effectively one of the largest greenhouse gas emitters in the agricultural sector. However, it is often forgotten that milk is for the most part made of water. That's why the emissions per litre of milk (1.3 kg CO2eq/kg milk) are relatively low. The situation is different for other dairy products such as cheese – up to 10 litres of milk are needed to produce 1 kg of cheese. The milk is, as it were, "concentrated". These products therefore perform worse in terms of their carbon footprint.