Dairy products such as processed milk, cheese, yoghurt and butter are produced and consumed globally. While having several dietary and economic benefits, their production and consumption also have many environmental impacts of various nature. In this study, a comprehensive review of studies that focus on the life cycle environmental impact analysis of dairy products has been conducted. A total of 31 studies that satisfy certain filtering criteria have been analysed, covering 6 different products and 17 different impacts. Cheese was observed as the most widely studied dairy product whereas global warming potential was the most commonly calculated impact, as it appeared in all 31 of the reviewed studies. The contributions of different stages (raw milk production, factory processes, storage and use, transportation, waste treatment) have been investigated. For many impacts, raw milk production was found to be the main contributor regardless of the product type. Fertiliser use, agricultural material production and use and on-site emissions were the main drivers associated with the raw milk production stage, leading to several impacts such as global warming potential, acidification and eutrophication. As far as the production processes are concerned, energy use emerged as the main cause of environmental footprint. Transportation, storage/use and waste treatment were found to have slightly significant to negligible contributions to almost all the impacts except for ozone layer depletion. Butter appeared as the dairy product with the highest environmental footprint, followed by cheese. The most common recommendations in order to reduce the environmental footprint of dairy products were as follows: using more energy-efficient equipment for production, optimising transportation routes and using more environmentally friendly vehicles, modifying the feed content for the farm animals, and using renewable energy sources.

奶制品，例如加工过的牛奶，奶酪，酸奶和黄油，在全球范围内生产和消费。尽管它们具有多种饮食和经济效益，但它们的生产和消费也具有许多不同性质的环境影响。在这项研究中，对乳制品生命周期环境影响分析的研究进行了全面回顾。总共分析了31个满足特定过滤标准的研究，涉及6种不同的产品和17种不同的影响。奶酪被认为是研究最广泛的乳制品，而全球变暖的潜力是最常计算得出的影响，正如在所有31篇评论研究中所显示的。不同阶段（原料奶生产，工厂流程，存储和使用，运输，废物处理）已经过调查。在许多方面，无论产品类型如何，原奶产量都是主要的贡献者。化肥的使用，农业原料的生产和使用以及现场排放是与生奶生产阶段相关的主要驱动力，从而导致了多种影响，例如全球变暖的潜力，酸化和富营养化。就生产过程而言，能源使用已成为造成环境足迹的主要原因。发现运输，储存/使用和废物处理对几乎所有影响（臭氧层耗竭除外）的影响都微不足道，甚至可以忽略不计。黄油作为具有最高环境足迹的乳制品出现，其次是奶酪。