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EUROPEAN EQUESTRIAN FEDERATION

STUDY TO CALCULATE CARBON HOOFPRINTS

PHASE 1
PHASE 2
Mid June
Workshop and 1-2-1 research phase with the EEF to understand the vision and context of the strategy

Buy Now
Early July
Create draft strategy and present to the EEF Working Group approving the strategy
Commence background research into each National Federation
Mid July
Create final version of strategy document for presenting at General Assembly
Early August
Present strategy to the members 6 weeks prior to General Assembly
Create National Federation framework document and present to the EEF for comment
Mid- September
General Assembly
October
Complete National Federation framework and schedule for webinars
November
Create webinars and sned invites
December
EEF to approve framework and webinars
January
Launch framework with supporting webinar

The EEF is proud to have created a partnership with Wageningen University and the Swedish Equestrian Federation (Svenska Ridsportförbundet) to research the carbon impact of an elite competition horse and understand how we can provide a more sustainable environment for our top athletes.

In Partnership with:

Currently, the full impact of the equine athlete’s carbon footprint is unknown and this needs to be fully understood in order to develop recommendations to reduce or offset emissions. The EEF is working with the Swedish Equestrian Federation, and researchers from Wageningen University to develop methods to understand a competition horse’s carbon “hoofprint”. To conduct the research, the project team have been engaging with elite stables in Sweden to create detailed case studies and identify all the key components of competition horses’ lifestyles, and in turn, calculate the carbon outputs. This includes aspects such as feed, pasture management, training and exercise, travel, and waste production.

RESEARCH RESULTS

By:
Iris Huisman
Hassan Pishgar Komleh
Theun Vellinga

Objectives

  • To gain insight into the GHG emissions from the equine (sport) sector
    • Focussed on husbandry and related activities
    • Identify main emission hotspots
  • To develop a standard tool for CF calculations

Development of Hoofprint

  • Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)
    • Storyline (framework)
    • System boundaries
    • Data collection (stable visits)
  • Various guidelines used

Storyline – framework

System definition

Functional unit: suggestion is to use one year of activity in sports

Show tool

Carbon Footprint Model

Results (example)

  • Based on data that was collected
  • Reproduction stage was set to default
  • Scenario’s
    • Basic
    • Including transport
    • Different diet

Results – basic scenario

  • Horizontal axis shows age
  • Vertical axis GHG emissions
  • This shows emissions per horse
  • Other scenario’s also based on, but added transport or changed diet
  • Example shows that:
    • Feed emissions largest share
    • Followed by manure management
    • Followed by enteric fermentation
  • Emissions higher at age 1, since a stallion and mare are needed to produce a foal

Results – Transport

  • Left figure shows emissions including 12 return road transports, different countries in Europe
  • Right figure shows emission including the 12 road transports, but also includes 5 intercontinental return flights
  • An increase in emission of approximately 10.000 kg CO2 per horse when 5 intercontinental flights are included
  • The example assumes that the destinations and total number of transport is the same from age 7 up till >12 years for simplification, in practice this will probably differ per horse

Results – Different diet

  • Graph shows emissions from feed
  • Comparison of two diets, the difference is:
    • Diet 1 contains a muesli
    • Diet 2 contains a concentrate
    • Otherwise diets are the same, so only one feed component differs

Hotspots

  • This example shows the share of emissions for a 1 year old horse and a 12 year old horse.
  • Transport emissions is the largest hotspot for a 12 year old horse in this example, however, it does not mean that the other emissions sources can be neglected, hence these are percentages and not absolute values.

    What’s next

    • But first: round of thoughts
    • Next up:
      • Paper
      • Use of tool
      • User experience
      • Tool is first version
        • -> improvements in future
        • Framework for data collection

    Content: