The DSF has published the annual sustainability progress reporting results for the 2025 calendar year. The analysis is generated using globally relevant, indicator metrics associated with the 11 DSF sustainability Criteria. The DSF currently accounts for ~30% of global (cow & buffalo) milk production, equivalent to 52% of the global formal milk market underpinned by an overall DSF reported milk volume growth of 3% to 273 billion litres in 2025.

New this year, the report differentiates between dairy cow and buffalo numbers, reflecting membership growth in Asia, and offers members the option to report workforce gender data as male, female or “other”. This is also the final report to use Somatic Cell Count as the Animal Care indicator, with the number of farm-specific Animal Health and Welfare Plans becoming the new metric from the next reporting cycle. 

Download the DSF Annual Sustainability Progress – 2025 Calendar Year Reporting. Translations for the following languages are planned for Chinese, French, Hindi, Japanese, Portuguese and Spanish and will be available shortly.

The DSF’s 2025–2030 Strategic Plan builds seamlessly on the organization’s previous five years achievements and is the outcome of an extremely valuable and wide-ranging consultative process.

A major new step is the recognition of the contribution of buffalo milk to global milk production. The DSF Governors have agreed a new Vision for the DSF that reflects this.

The DSF Governors recognised this next Strategic Plan required a degree of consistency combined with a targeted and dynamic set of actions that would make the DSF the globally representative sustainability reporting framework for dairy as was the aspiration from the very beginning. The 2025 – 2030 Plan introduces three new priority focus areas: The development of a revised Value Proposition and reporting review and development, a focus on low to middle income countries, and new and dynamic DSF resourcing models required to deliver the DSF aspirations.

Download to explore the detail in the Strategic Plan and the 18 deliverables for the next five years.

These groups provide a platform for DSF Aggregating, Implementing and Stage 1 members to share and compare actions that they are implementing across the globe with the aim of sharing successes and finding solutions to common challenges. Initiated in 2021, there are currently three groups: Animal Care, GHG Emissions and Biodiversity & Nature meeting regularly. Each Community of Interest is facilitated by a DSF member, supported by the DSF secretariat and group members input into what topics they would like to discuss.  Contact the DSF for more information.