In our series featuring sustainability leaders at Kemin EMENA, we sit down with Diego Martínez del Olmo, Business Manager for Ruminants in the EMENA region. With over 25 years of experience in ruminant nutrition and animal health and a deep commitment to sustainability, Diego brings a wealth of expertise to his role. In this interview, he shares insights on the challenges of transforming agricultural practices, the critical role of innovation, and becoming more transparent.
“I hold a PhD in veterinary science and began my career in animal health. However, I soon realised nutrition's vital role in animal health and farm productivity, leading me to shift focus after completing my PhD. I joined Kemin seven years ago and now lead the ruminant division, overseeing our solutions, technical support, and product management.
I believe that if you can’t measure your impact, you can’t improve it. For Kemin, having a baseline is essential for tracking our progress. It also helps our customers evaluate CO2 equivalents (CO2-eq) per animal in diet formulations, now a key performance indicator (KPI) for us.
Our recent focus has also been on conducting life cycle assessments (LCAs) for all our solutions. This enables us to measure impacts and reduce CO2-eq per kilogram year by year, ultimately lowering CO2 equivalents per kilogram of milk or meat. Even though the inclusion rate of nutrients like rumen-protected methionine, lysine, or choline may be minor in the animal's total feed intake, they can contribute to reducing the total impact of the life cycle assessment.
Our life cycle assessments have offered valuable insights into enhancing the sustainability of our existing solutions. We’re also developing new solutions with sustainability built in from the start.
For example, for the encapsulation process of our nutrients, we’re incorporating more eco-friendly ingredients and replacing palm oil — its extraction can damage forests and contribute to biodiversity loss — with alternative fatty acids. We’re also using biopolymers instead of synthetic ones.
Moreover, we aid our customers in amino acid formulations and transition phase management, which can enhance feed efficiency, improve animal performance, reduce nitrogen and phosphorus excretions, and improve animal health. All of which ultimately contributes to the reduction of CO2-eq per kilogram of milk. We also increase the nutrient concentration and bioavailability of our rumen-protected amino acids and choline, improving the amount of nutrients that reach the bloodstream through advanced encapsulation technology.
Improved feed efficiency — producing more milk or meat from the same dry matter intake — helps reduce emissions and enhance animal health and performance. This leads to increased milk production and better-quality components, further cutting CO2-eq emissions in the dairy industry. In dairy, our work with rumen-protected amino acids has significantly boosted milk true protein, allowing an increase in cheese efficiency, ensuring dairy companies produce more cheese from the same milk and lowering the carbon footprint per kilogram. This is crucial for sustainability as the global population grows, enabling us to meet food demands with fewer resources.
At Kemin, we also recognise that Europe needs to import certain feed ingredients, like soybeans, which have a high carbon footprint. However, thanks to our nutrients and our way of working, we can reduce the use of soybean meal for ruminants by substituting it with local alternatives like rapeseed or sunflower meal for example, to maintain the same level of metabolizable protein in the diet. Using more local, sustainable ingredients, we help our customers lower CO2-eq emissions and save costs.
Even though ruminants are often criticised for their negative environmental impact, they are essential as they can consume a wider range of feed ingredients that do not compete with our food and transform them into milk and meat. We can also incorporate co-products from human food production and other industries into their feed, which — when put very simply — turns our waste into valuable food like milk or meat. In conjunction with our rumen-protected amino acid solutions, this ensures customers can maintain their production levels and improve the environment.
One of the biggest challenges in sustainability is communication. Many consumers view milk and ruminant production as harmful, but that’s not always true. While methane often gets the spotlight, looking at the overall CO2-eq balance per kilogram of milk or meat is the most important parameter. We should aim to have a full vision by including productivity, the impact of different feed ingredients, and the long-term effects of the solutions. This way, we can arrive at a clear and transparent picture.
I believe that setting realistic goals and basing calculations on credible data — and properly communicating this — is important for all our stakeholders. It helps us focus on being more transparent and ethical regarding our sustainability performance. We should aim for transparency through careful measurement and citing life cycle assessments. At Kemin, we aim to set realistic targets and make steady, honest progress.
Our goals focus on all four scopes of sustainability, particularly reducing CO2 emissions and helping farmers improve economically. Scope 4, the life cycle impact assessment, is as important as scopes 1, 2, and 3. Scope 4 emissions, or ‘avoided emissions,’ refer to solutions outside a product's life cycle, such as how much CO2-eq per kilogram of milk or meat we can save due to a proper diet formulation with our solutions.
Industry alignment is essential, and Europe is leading the way, with Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Belgium, and the Netherlands at the forefront. Denmark’s CO2 tax policies and dairy companies' incentives clearly show the financial benefits of sustainable practices.
Moreover, consumers demand local products and avoid palm oil, while companies reward farmers for local sourcing and reduce soy use. Across the sector, professionals see that sustainability can boost efficiency and reduce environmental impact without harming profitability.
Sustainability is woven into every decision we make. Reducing the carbon footprint aligns with better economic returns for producers and benefits the planet. Sustainability solutions must remain affordable for farmers to ensure both sustainability and profitability. I’m proud and excited to help our customers improve in both areas, especially with ruminants.”
