Exploring relationships among different sustainability aspects in innovative livestock systems in Europe

European livestock farming reflects a range of systems characterized by diverse inno-vations to increase sustainability. This study aimed to highlight the relationships amongdifferent aspects of sustainability in various types of systems. Data were retrieved from106 farms containing different animal species (dairy cattle, beef cattle, pigs andpoultry), using a modified version of the Excel-based questionnaire public goodstool. Each farm was assigned scores for 12 spurs (indicators) of sustainability. Basedon these results, the farms were allocated into five clusters. Correlations among thespurs were evaluated, both across all farms and cluster-wise, with contrasting results.When analysed across all farms, several spurs from the environmental dimension werepositively correlated with each other. Further, many of the environmental spurs werenegatively correlated with spur profitability, which was positively correlated with spursocial wellbeing and farm business resilience. A comparison of cluster-wise correlationsshowed a positive correlation between environmental spurs and spur profitability forlarge farms but a negative correlation for small farms. The diverging, yet complemen-tary, correlation results from this study open the field to sustainable pathways that arecapable of connecting realities with differing production systems and geographicalareas while also incorporating their unique features

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