Brian Lindsay Speaker Biography

Sustainability Consultant, Lindsay Consulting and Director, Dairy Sustainability Framework

Brian Lindsay is UK-based and operates a global consultancy business (Lindsay Consulting) bridging the gap between food companies and agriculture in a quest for mutually beneficial approaches to achieving sustainable food systems.

He also holds the post of Director for the Dairy Sustainability Framework (DSF). This program covers 30% of global milk production and is open to all milk producing regions of the globe. The DSF is a model that allows members to adapt their sustainability programs to suit local needs and priorities in a quantifiable way. It is Brian’s role to support the global members with their sustainability initiatives under the Framework, as well as co-ordinating the development of the necessary indicator metrics and associated reporting mechanisms that permits the generation of targeted messaging.

Brian is also Global Dairy Platform’s (GDP) Global Sector Lead for Sustainability. This involves reviewing new science, responding to global food industry and political consultations at a number of levels, providing position statements on behalf of the global dairy sector where required in both written and verbal formats. Global Dairy Platform is a membership organisation with its Board made up of the CEO’s of the world’s major dairy companies such as Arla Foods, Dairy Farmers of America, Saputo, Fonterra, Mengniu, Leprino Foods, Meiji and Friesland Campina. Brian reports directly to the Executive Director of GDP. As part of this group Brian is a Steering Group member of the Pathways to Dairy Net Zero initiative. In December 2023, Brian was elected to the Executive Committee of the Global Round Table for Sustainable Beef.

Brian has Managed several global and sectoral initiatives on methane quantification (GWP*), Carbon Sequestration (C-Sequ), launched September 2022, and dairy sector carbon foot printing standard (IDF) with the latest update launched 2022. He is currently managing a global initiative developing an internationally accepted protocol for the inclusion of on farm mitigation technologies (initially focused on methane inhibitors) in on farm, regional and national reporting.

Brian is also driving the dairy sector contribution to the GHG-Protocol Land Sector and Removals Guidance consultation to ensure the requirements are appropriate for dairy sector/commodity agriculture, application. Here Brian is leading a group of six global dairy organizations in delivering guidance and standardized approaches for the dairy sector in applying the `GHG-Protocol.

In addition, Brian is also an active participant at the United Nations Environment Assembly meeting (UNEA) in Kenya (2019, 2022 and 2024) as a member of the Business and Industry Major Group.

As a consultant, Brian has many individual clients ranging from farmer supply groups to multi-national food companies across a number of commodities. Brian has the experience and skills to operate at both field and board levels in his efforts to support companies in embedding sustainability into strategy development.
In his spare time, Brian also runs a small sheep flock from which he markets ‘boxed lamb’ directly to customers.