Achieving Sustainability of the Seafood Sector in the European Atlantic Area by Addressing Eco-Social Challenges: The NEPTUNUS Project

Abstract

Fisheries and aquaculture are becoming a focus of societal concern driven by globalization and increasing environmental degradation, mainly caused by climate change and marine litter. In response to this problem, the European Atlantic Area NEPTUNUS project aims to support and inform about the sustainability of the seafood sector, boosting the transition towards a circular economy through defining eco-innovation approaches and a steady methodology for eco-labelling products. This timely trans-regional European project proposes key corrective actions for positively influencing resource efficiency by addressing a life cycle thinking and involving all stakeholders in decision-making processes, harnessing the water-energy-seafood nexus. This paper presents inter-related objectives, methodologies and cues to action that will potentially meet these challenges that are aligned with many of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and European policy frameworks (e.g., Farm to Fork, European Green Deal).

The Relationship of Nutrition Knowledge and Information on Consumers’ Purchase Decision toward Fast Food Meal

“…As stated by Ikonen et al (2020) it is hypothesized that higher levels of nutrition knowledge are linked to improved accuracy when it comes to the recommended amounts of negative nutrients and higher perceived label understandability. After that, as stated by Laso et al (2022) education and information are also important for informed consumer choice, and there is a range of methods available, the most well-known and extensively used of which is product labelling. This could be a useful tool for modifying and influencing food habits and behaviour.…”

Environmental performance of Cantabrian (Northern Spain) pelagic fisheries: Assessment of purse seine and minor art fleets under a life cycle approach

“…These figures support that the blue economy is central to achieving the objectives of the European Green Deal 'Farm to fork' strategy (European Commission, 2022c) and Circular Economy Action Plan (CEAP) (European Commission, 2022d): the transition to a circular model, and the transformation and digitalisation to become a fairer, more resilient, resource-efficient and competitive economy, phasing out net GHG emissions and protecting the natural capital (Laso et al, 2022).…”

“…mass, economic, energy; given that the system boundaries were limited to the landing of fish at port, mass allocation was selected as the most appropriate approach (Laso et al, 2017b). The reason is that, following the PEFCR, mass allocation is considered to better reflect reality over longer periods and changing economic conditions, such as those during the pandemic and crisis, apart from not being highly affected by the volatile economic price of the product, which depends on the season, freshness and many other market factors (Laso et al, 2022). In addition, this approach provides a clearer perspective for communicating results to stakeholders at this early stage of the supply chain (Laso et al, 2018b) and facilitates to contrast outcomes with other similar fisheries studies, in which the use of 1 kg of fish as a functional unit is the most established.…”

Water-Energy-Food nexus index proposal as a sustainability criterion on dairy farms

“…To estimate the environmental impacts associated with milk production, three life cycle indicators were selected: carbon footprint (CF), water footprint (WF), and energy footprint (EF). These footprints are traditionally considered when assessing a food system following a WEF nexus philosophy (Laso et al, 2022). On the other hand, the food pillar has been usually estimated through several nutritional indicators, for instance, the nutrient density (Drewnowski, 2009).…”