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The dairy industry requires substantial energy resources at all stages of production and supply to meet consumer needs in terms of quantity, quality and food safety. The expected future climate change effects will cause serious uncertainty to the dairy industry. Adapting to these upcoming conditions is a challenge and one that is compounded by the continuous increase in food demand, as a result of global population growth. Predictably, under current conditions, this situation might lead to a significant increase in the energy requirements of the dairy industry. Therefore, there is a clear need to mitigate energy use through enhanced energy conservation, waste reduction and waste management. This review paper presents and discusses alternative dairy operations and mitigation strategies that have the potential to lead the dairy industry towards net-zero carbon emissions. Further, the focus of this work turns to supply chain energy modelling (SCEM) as means to mitigate energy use, while relevant work in the literature is reviewed. Supply chain energy models can provide a complete overview of the energy demand and the energy mix of a dairy supply chain. Additionally, they can highlight the most energy consuming processes and allow the evaluation of alternative energy-saving operations that can lead towards the net-zero carbon target. Overall, the development or use of computational tools for simulating the energy demand in the industry has strong potential for improving sustainability across the dairy supply chain. • Insight on climate change effects on the dairy supply chain and impact on energy demand. • Understanding the relevance and importance of the "net-zero" carbon emissions target in the dairy supply chain. • Identification of novel energy mitigation strategies across the dairy supply chain. • Importance of developing supply chain energy models (SCEM) to address energy mitigation in the dairy sector. • Evaluation of modelling techniques to develop or deliver supply chain energy models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]