Food products' environmental impact - especially their impact on the climate - are the focus of consumers, retailers and other decision-makers worldwide. The world needs more food, especially animal protein, but many of the world's natural resources are already exploited over its carrying capacity. More than 20% of private households' impact on the climate comes from food consumption. To feed the world in the future, we must produce more food with less environmental impact than we do today. Fisheries and aquaculture constitute the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people globally, and fish provide more than 1.5 billion people with 20% of their daily needs for animal protein.
We use life cycle analysis method (LCA) which is a ISO-certified method to quantify the environmental impact of a product from cradle to grave. LCA has a systems perspective and is an ideal way to give decision makers insight into where and how to most cost effectively reduce the environmental impact of their product. For consumers, the life-cycle analyzes of food products provides a basis to choose environmentally friendly products. Read more about LCA here.
Activities and competence
- Climate tracking of Norwegian seafood products. We have studied the and energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions in the export of Norwegian seafood for the Fisheries and Coastal Affairs Ministry of and we have calculated the climate track and energy consumption of 22 different Norwegian seafood products in the report "Carbon footprint and energy use of Norwegian seafood products."
- Seminar on eco-labeling and traceability. We gathered many of Europe's major supermarket chains and research communities to look at the contents of today's eco-labels and especially the requirements that should apply to verifiability and requirements for the future of eco-labels. See presentations and materials from the seminars here
- Development of standards for climate tracking of seafood for the Standards Norway and the Ministry of Fisheries and Coastal Affairs
- Study of changes in energy and climate change by more freely of fishing gear choice in the Norwegian fisheries.
- LCA analyzes of Chilean mussel farming
- Comparative analyzes of carbon footprinting and area used for feed resources for farmed salmon and agricultural products
Results from climate tracking of Norwegian seafood products