Aquafeeds are the costliest resource and biggest contributor to environmental impacts associated with aquaculture operations. As the commercial aquaculture industry expands, environmental monitoring programs and sustainability initiatives are essential to ensure social, economic, and ecological impacts are minimized. Cargill Aqua Nutrition (CQN), one of the largest global aquafeed manufacturers, has recently established the SeaFurther Sustainability program (also referred to as “the program” in this report). The program’s goal is to assist their aquaculture farm customers in reducing carbon emissions along their respective aquafeed supply chains by 30% by 2030. The program utilizes Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodologies which have been useful in providing reliable, numerical values for carbon footprint comparisons.
The goal of this capstone project is to advance CQN’s greenhouse gas mitigation efforts by implementing the program in North America via public-private collaboration. First, I obtained an understanding of the LCA methodologies behind the program and CQN North America’s existing system processes on reporting. Currently, I am in the process of working with CQN North America to collect data required for LCA model calculations. This allows me to create a living database for each respective customer’s supply chain. Lastly, I will create reduction roadmaps and provide insights to the program’s customers on how they can lower their carbon footprint (Figure 1). Continued program development will include a landscape analysis to identify the next environmental impact category priorities among CQN North America and their customers.