The PRISM 2030 Year Three Report reveals links between farm management, efficiency and emissions as next phase expands research into farmer behaviour, economics and further carbon reduction.
PRISM has worked with more than 300 beef and sheep suppliers to build a stronger evidence base around farm emissions and identify practical opportunities for improvement. Across the first three years of the programme, farm data was independently analysed by Harper Adams University (HAU).
Across two full carbon assessment cycles, the programme has generated 1.4 million data points, creating a substantial primary dataset on UK livestock emissions.
The Year Three Report shows average beef emissions reduced by 8.3% between the programme’s two assessment phases, from 21.8 to 20.0kg CO₂e/kg deadweight, while average lamb emissions reduced by 1.3%, from 23.5 to 23.2kg CO₂e/kg deadweight.
Farms reporting management changes since their first assessment also recorded lower carbon footprints than those reporting no change, with emissions 8.2% lower among beef enterprises and 13.9% lower among lamb enterprises. While the report does not attribute these differences to individual interventions, the findings provide a stronger basis for understanding how management, productivity and efficiency relate to emissions.
Phil Hambling, Director of Agriculture and Sustainable Sourcing at ABP, said:
“The Year Three data shows that we are starting to build a much clearer picture of what sits behind differences in carbon performance between farms.
“There is no single change that will deliver the same result for every business, but the findings are showing how closely emissions can be linked with productivity, efficiency and the way an individual system is managed. That gives us a much stronger basis for helping farmers understand where opportunities may lie within their own business.
“PRISM was always intended to be a long-term investment in building evidence, so extending our work with HAU allows us to take the next step. We now want to understand which changes deliver results, how they stack up commercially and what motivates farmers to adopt them, so that the learning can ultimately benefit a much wider group of beef and sheep producers.”
ABP has extended its partnership with Harper Adams University through to 2032, taking the relationship to a decade. Three further rounds of carbon footprinting are planned in 2027, 2029 and 2031, allowing researchers to track farm performance over a longer period and build on the 1.4 million data points already collected through PRISM.
One of the clearest findings from the Year Three Report is the link between biological efficiency and emissions. After accounting for changes in livestock stocked and sold, lower-emitting beef farms were found to be three times more efficient than higher-emitting farms. The results also highlight the importance of comparing like-for-like farming systems, with enterprise type having the greatest influence on beef emissions.
Future analysis will also broaden to include farm economics, whole-farm nutrient circularity and nutritional life cycle assessment, alongside continued knowledge exchange with farmers and the wider agricultural sector.
The longer-term ambition is to use the findings from PRISM to support the expansion of carbon footprinting across ABP’s wider beef and lamb supply base, giving more farmers access to farm-level data and helping identify where practical improvements can be made.
Phil Hambling continued:
“For retailers, food manufacturers and other businesses across the food chain, this growing evidence base will provide greater insight into the environmental performance of beef and lamb production and help inform approaches to long-term sustainability.”
PRISM forms part of ABP’s wider sustainability strategy, One With Nature, which focuses on water, biodiversity and protecting natural resources and people.
You can view the full report and summary by clicking below: