Socioeconomic prospects of a seaweed bioeconomy in Sweden

Abstract

Seaweed cultivation is a large industry worldwide, but production in Europe is small compared to production in Asian countries. In the EU, the motivations for seaweed farming may be seen from two perspectives; one being economic growth through biomass production and the other being the provisioning of ecosystem services such as mitigating eutrophication. In this paper, we assess the economic potential of large-scale cultivation of kelp, Saccharina latissima, along the Swedish west coast, including the value of externalities. The findings suggest that seaweed farming has the potential of becoming a profitable industry in Sweden. Furthermore, large-scale seaweed farming can sequester a significant share of annual anthropogenic nitrogen and phosphorus inflows to the basins of the Swedish west coast (8% of N and 60% of P). Concerning the valuation of externalities, positive values generated from sequestration of nitrogen and phosphorus are potentially counteracted by negative values from interference with recreational values. Despite the large N and P uptake, the socioeconomic value of this sequestration is only a minor share of the potential financial value from biomass production. This suggests that e.g. payment schemes for nutrient uptake based on the socioeconomic values generated is not likely to be a tipping point for the industry. Additionally, seaweed cultivation is not a cost-efficient measure in itself to remove nutrients. Policy should thus be oriented towards industry development, as the market potential of the biomass will be the driver that may unlock these bioremediation opportunities.

Current knowledge and future perspectives of the use of seaweeds for livestock production and meat quality: a systematic review

“…The latter include investments, payment of energy costs (for instance, in order to ensure adequate agitation) and deployment of abundant water resources, which are expensive in many countries. However, some case-studies limited to particular countries have concluded that macroalgal cultivation may be profitable (Hasselström et al, 2020).…”

Offshore Multi-Use Setting: Introducing Integrative Assessment Modelling to Alleviate Uncertainty of Developing Seaweed Aquaculture Inside Wind Farms

“…Coastal and marine stakeholders were also subject to adverse impacts in two of these social-impact pathways. SA installations led to increased claims on available space which was hypothesised to create spatial competition and interference across environmental protection objectives, fishery operations and leisure uses ( Hasselström et al, 2020 ;Gjertsen et al, 2020 ;Miah et al, 2020 ;Gegg and Wells, 2019 ;Hasselström et al, 2018 ).…”

The underexplored potential of green macroalgae in aquaculture

“…By allowing to identify impacting hotspots within the aquaculture value chain, improvements can be implemented towards increased sustainability. For instance, LCA studies applied to large‐scale cultivation of the brown algae Saccharina latissima , suggested that seaweed farming has the potential of becoming a profitable industry in North West Europe, 230,231 with great promise to reduce the resource footprint of seaweed cultivation once energetic efficiency is improved (electricity and transport) and biomass productivity increases; 230,232 and/or improvements on infrastructural component materials (eg stainless steel chains, polypropylene ropes) and system design (eg number of cultivation strips in the water column) are employed 233 . Similarly, an explorative LCA study performed to evaluate the environmental impacts of producing bioplastics from green macroalgae ( Ulva spp.)…”