Sustainable sources of high-quality protein, like farmed salmon, are essential in transforming food systems to provide climate-resilient nutrition.
Commentary
By Sophie Ryan
Global Salmon Initiative
As the global population grows, sustainable sources of high-quality protein are essential for transforming food systems and ensuring climate-resilient nutrition.
With its exceptional nutritional value and relatively low environmental footprint, farmed salmon is well suited to meet the challenges of feeding a growing world.
Global Salmon Initiative (GSI) is committed to making farmed salmon a cornerstone of sustainable food systems. By aligning the sector with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and climate targets for 2030, GSI is helping shape a future where aquaculture can support both people and the planet.
What is sometimes unknown about aquaculture, specifically farmed salmon, is its low environmental footprint.
With lower land and freshwater use and fewer emissions compared with most terrestrial proteins, farmed salmon stands out as one of the most eco-efficient animal-based proteins available.
Additionally, farmed salmon is an accessible and versatile option that fits into a variety of diets. It’s nutrient-dense, rich in omega-3 fatty acids, essential vitamins such as D and B12, and is an excellent source of high-quality protein.
This combination of delivering key nutrients with a low environmental footprint is what positions farmed salmon to play an important role in nourishing communities while supporting sustainable food systems.
However, like all other food-producing sectors, the sector must undergo significant transformation to meet the dual demands of feeding a growing population and reducing environmental impacts.
Within GSI, we believe collaboration is essential for driving meaningful change across the farmed salmon sector at the speed and scale needed to address climate change. GSI members work together to tackle shared environmental challenges, accelerating progress toward global sustainability goals.
One area of focus is improving the sustainability of aquaculture feed. Feed ingredients are a core part of fish farming in providing essential nutrients for the fish and for the end-consumer. However, these ingredients often come from complex supply chains with environmental and social risks, including greenhouse gas emissions, land conversion and use of natural resources such as wild fisheries.
To address these risks, GSI partnered with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) to develop an Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Feed Risk Assessment Tool.
This tool enables members to achieve full traceability of all aspects of the supply chain, building greater awareness of potential risks and areas of improvement and ultimately, guiding better decision-making to reduce impacts across supply chains.
Tools such as these demonstrate how shared innovation, and transparency can strengthen a sector’s sustainability profile. Moreover, this tool is not limited to farmed salmon; it can be applied across the livestock and protein sectors to drive long-term, wide-scale improvements.
WWF Markets Institute Senior Vice President Jason Clay said, “GSI has made more progress against individual company environmental goals and sector improvements than any other sector. Both the industry and its reputation have benefited from this collaborative work.”
This collective approach to identifying challenges and working together on solutions is what GSI is most focused on. Aside from sustainable feed, GSI members are also working to reduce carbon footprint.
Farmed salmon already has a lower carbon footprint than many other proteins, but there is still room for improvement.
To achieve this, we are developing a practical and aligned accounting framework for greenhouse gas emissions. This will enable more consistent tracking and comparison across regions and companies. This data-driven approach highlights successful strategies, identifies priority areas and helps us drive change quickly.
Feeding transformation
As we look to produce more food with lower environmental impact, transformation is needed across the food system. While farmed salmon isn’t the only solution, GSI’s collaborative model offers an example of how the food system can evolve to meet the needs of a growing population while protecting the planet.
As the five-year countdown to achieving the SDGs begins, GSI is committed to collaborating and working towards the collective vision for the salmon industry of 2030.
Meaningful change is possible when companies come together to solve shared challenges.
GSI members are shaping a future where farmed salmon supports healthy communities, resilient ecosystems and a sustainable planet. By working together, our sector is proving that we can go further together—and this is already underway.
File image shows Sophie Ryan the CEO of the Global Salmon Initiative.
This article was originally published on trellis.net