This paper is concerned with the construction of a discrete conservative operator on a mesh, knowing a conservative operator on a different mesh. We analyse the possibility of defining such a transfer based on the preservation of conservation properties and provide practical procedures, which can be effectively implemented for schemes that work on staggered grids. We show that such a transfer can be applied to obtain a discrete balance equation on a mesh starting from a discrete balance equation on a different mesh, and to prove local discrete duality relations for standard discrete operators defined on staggered grids.