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Fish feed company releases sustainability targets

The BioMar Group recently published a global report on sustainability.

“It is the first time we published a global report on sustainability, and with this we commit to increased public transparency in our activities via annual disclosures in accordance with the GRI G4 framework,” said Carlos Diaz, CEO of the BioMar Group at the launch of the new report.

In an accompanying press release BioMar notes that it has for many years worked actively with sustainability both in terms of product development, but also through an active collaboration with customers, suppliers, NGO’s and other stakeholders in the value chain. “This includes involvement in the elaboration of the ASC standards for salmon and trout and in the development of the IFFO RS standard,” notes the release.

“An essential part of our commitment to increased sustainability is to minimize sustainability risks

and support initiatives towards increased sustainability throughout the aquaculture value chain,” explained Diaz. “We recognize that what we do in our operations, the performance of our products, and how we source our raw materials affect our customers’ options to improve sustainability of their operations.”

According to the UN, the world’s population will need twice as much food and 30% more drinking water, by 2050. Simultaneously the world’s agricultural production is projected to fall by 10-15% in consequence of climate changes. “Aquaculture will be one of the most important elements in establishing sufficient food production and we have a great responsibility to ensure it happens in a sustainable way. Aquaculture must become a pioneering model for sustainable food production,” underlined Diaz.

He also emphasized that the still more complex diets used in aquaculture both allow the industry to grow and contribute to an improved sustainability profile, but they also open new challenges as the new ingredients in the diets all must be evaluated in terms of sustainability. “It does not help if we replace scarce marine resources with ingredients which lead to deforestation. We need to make choices which do not just change the problem,” he said.

In order to make the right choices BioMar has within its BioSustain program developed an Eco-Efficiency tool, which can be used to evaluate not just the sustainability profile of diets, but which can also help fish producers optimize their production towards increased sustainability.

“We have ourselves set some ambitious targets, notably a reduction of CO₂-emission from our production by 20 % per ton of feed produced,” said Diaz.  “However, the largest environmental impact from fish feed production comes from the production of the feed ingredients through the consumption of water or the utilization of scarce resources. Therefore we want to allow our customers to take informed choices when it comes selecting fish feed, and our goal is to make eco-efficiency an essential criterion in everything we do.”