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ABOUT

The Project

BLUEBOOST aims to demonstrate that co-culture of a wide range of low trophic species with established species can boost current European aquaculture of blue foods and feeds while reducing the environmental footprint and moving towards a carbon-neutral aquaculture blue economy.

The consortium consists of partners from eight countries (Spain, Portugal, Poland, Italy, Brazil, Sweden, UK, Finland) and three seas / oceans (Atlantic – north and south, Mediterranean, Baltic). Partners are experts in the ecology, hydrobiology, culture of low trophic species, integrated multitrophic aquaculture (IMTA), economics and life cycle assessment (LCA) of blue food and feed production. BLUEBOOST aims to provide knowledge based solutions that will enable the aquaculture industry to overcome bottlenecks that inhibit Governments and businesses, following an impact pathway that can increase the volume and diversity of aquaculture products, reduce environmental footprint towards a carbon-neutral economy, raise the circularity and competitiveness of the blue economy, provide new products, restore ecosystems, create jobs and increase ecosystems resilience against climate change. The partners will work with six different IMTA systems and a wide range of species from different trophic levels to evaluate the use of waste streams from traditionally farmed species to provide nutrients and feed for low trophic species. The nutrients and carbon fluxes will be mapped, and the environmental footprint of six systems with and without IMTA, determined employing LCA to demonstrate the benefits and trade-offs of incorporating extractive low trophic species in combination with traditional aquaculture species. Self-financed partners will examine new products, use of macroalgae for sustainable food packaging and test low trophic blue feed ingredients in the diets of marine organisms. To restore ecosystems, threatened oysters species will be farmed in Italy and Spain, whereas coastal ponds of the Ebro Delta will be offered as new aquaculture sites and protection against climate change related sea level rise and storm intensification.

We envisage that BLUEBOOST will involve (co-creation/co-design) and impact all stakeholder levels providing societal value creation such as: (a) technical advances that provide new sustainable production methods and products; (b) reduced environmental footprint of blue food and feeds; (c) environmental restorative aquaculture practices; (d) improved economics with increased volume and diversity of production; (e), policy-making to provide conditions for and to drive desired change and (f) low carbon products and business investments to meet consumer demand. This win-win scenario will deliver improved diversification of blue foods and feeds and, at the same time, increase production volumes and quality, to improve the competitiveness of European and Brazilian aquaculture while reducing the industries environmental footprint.

BLUEBOOST activities are planned over a period of 3 years and are divided in four work packages. In WP1, management of BLUEBOOST will follow a thoroughly tested continuously updated formula that has achieved the successful execution of a wide range of international projects. In WP2 the partners in the consortium will develop six novel integrated commercial and pilot scale IMTA systems with a wide range of low trophic species that exploit nutrient cycles and circular use of waste streams. In addition, new blue products will be developed. In WP3 LCA will be used to compare environmental impacts of current monoculture to the novel integrated systems; results will be used both to further optimise the design of the novel systems and to model estimated environmental impacts of fully upscaled commercial production. In WP4 the outputs from WP2 and WP3 will be disseminated to stakeholders.

Work package 2
Integrated Multitrophic Aquaculture (IMTA) Systems

This exciting component of the project will see the BlueBoost partnership develop six novel integrated commercial and pilot scale IMTA systems employing a wide range of low-trophic species. The general idea is to explore and use the great variety of biological systems offered by aquatic biodiversity to improve farming efficiency and diversify productions, exploiting key nutrient cycles and circular use of waste streams.
The protagonists of these activities will be low-trophic species such as algae and plants, bivalve filter-feeders, benthic invertebrates and herbivorous or omnivorous fish. These will be farmed alongside established aquaculture species in different aquatic environments across the partnership vast geographical range.
For the first time a concerted effort covering all environments and production system will explore the potential of the Integrated Multitrophic Aquaculture concept to reverse the negative effects of climate change induced land salinization, explore the production and use of key seaweed species, reduce the environmental impact of traditional farming methods and develop new sustainable blue food and feeds.

Objectives:
2.1: To demonstrate on a pilot scale the feasibility to culture low trophic species, fish, mollusc and macroalgae together in coastal ponds (and / or rice fields) in the Mediterranean environment affected by salinisation.
2.2: To demonstrate on a pilot scale culture of Ulva sp. in effluents from Atlantic coastal land-based finfish production ponds.
2.3: To demonstrate sustainable production of freshwater low-trophic species through pond-based freshwater F-IMTA, to reduce impact of freshwater aquaculture on downstream ecosystems, and to upcycle common farm side streams to produce valuable blue food and feed.
2.4: To evaluate the productivity and logistics, and to provide environmental and economic data on the performance of a near shore open cage IMTA system to produce new knowledge on the farming methods of still underdeveloped low-trophic species.
2.5: To demonstrate the IMTA of a range of low trophic species in a shrimp biofloc system to control and reduce effluent solids and nutrients from commercial production systems.
2.6: To demonstrate the culture of low trophic species in IMTA cage systems in the near shore environment in the South Atlantic (27° S latitude - Brazil).
2.7: Produce and evaluate new blue products, blue feeds and foods that can provide markets for low trophic species.

Work Package 3
Sustainability assessment of novel IMTA systems

In this part of the project the aim is to ensure that the developed systems are designed to be as sustainable as possible, both from an environmental and economic point of view. The six systems will be evaluated first in a monoculture state and then with low-trophic species added to evaluate both benefits and potential tradeoffs involved in adding more species. Initial results will be used in the further development of the systems, e.g. in terms of choice of materials and energy sources. For the environmental analyses, we will use Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and complementary methods to quantify nutrient flows and circularity in IMTA. Finally, principles for how to go from modelling an experimental case study to a fully optimized commercial production will be developed. The most environmentally sustainable system will not be used unless it is also economically viable. The economic analysis will shed light on the viability of the six IMTA systems, their investment requirements and economic performance relative to those of monoculture aquaculture systems, hence drawing a baseline.The economic resilience of the IMTA systems will then be evaluated, by developing a sensitivity analysis based on scenarios capturing realistic combinations of price and production risks.
Together, these analyses will demonstrate how sustainable the IMTA systems are at present as well as their future potential.

Objectives:
3.1: Develop novel methods for the assessment of circularity in IMTA systems.
3.2: Use life cycle assessment (LCA) and complementing approaches to assess and optimise the environmental and economic sustainability of integrating low trophic species into existing systems.
3.3: Assess the environmental impacts of a wide range of IMTA systems and publish LCA data for both IMTA and non-IMTA systems.

Blueboost Impact

BLUEBOOST outputs disseminated through the communication plan following the theory of change aim to improve aquaculture industry’s societal services and economic value. At the heart of the required changes is the industries’ ambition to sustainably intensify production activities and maximise economic return, together with society’s legitimate expectations to see the environmental footprint of goods and services being reduced. The same focus has accelerated change in European core industries such as the automobile industry, where both consumer and industry desire for more sustainability was pushed by legislation to favour sustainable products (electric cars) and prohibit unsustainable products (prohibit sales of fossil fuel combustion engine). BLUEBOOST proposes the same approach to accelerate change in the aquaculture industry by addressing significant knowledge gaps that exist in the conceptual development, practical implementation and regulation of integrated aquaculture systems (Problem analysis) to provide outcomes and a clear pathway to change. BLUEBOOST outcomes predict the aquaculture industry will improve environmental credentials of businesses and products, consumers will demand low-carbon impact products and business investments and policymakers will provide a positive environment for the co-culture of low trophic and established species and deploy regulation to capture waste and reduce pollution. Therefore, Government policy and changing expectations of investors and consumers will drive aquaculture transition to carbon neutrality as shown in the impact pathway in the Theory of Change figure. This win-win scenario will deliver improved diversification of blue food / feed products and, at the same time, will increase production volumes to improve business economic returns combined with a reduced environmental footprint. Therefore, BLUEBOOST can deliver a concrete roadmap for the aquaculture industry to demonstrably reduce its environmental impact and increase sustainable blue food and feed production that can lead to societal transformation.

This societal transformation would expect changes such as: large increase in production of low tropic species, sustainable carbon neutral aquaculture, less pollution, less eutrophication, more wealth in rural coastal areas, improved costal environment, restored ecosystems, more species diversity and healthy diets. BLUEBOOST partners estimate that these changes can increase European aquaculture (similar for Brazil) production by an added 15-20 % (above expected increases) in the first 10 years after the project. The EU aquaculture sector today employs around 75000 persons and a 15-20% increase would mean 11-15000 new jobs would be created by such an expansion of production. The increase would be primarily production of low trophic species that would be estimated to lower greenhouse gas emissions for each kilo of aquaculture production by 8%. While if these low trophic species replace beef, a 97% reduction in emissions is achieved per kilo consumed, which gives an indication of the degree of impact BLUEBOOST proposes. In addition to environmental benefits, such a dietary shift would mean important improvements in human nutrition and health.