As populations grow, demand for resources expands and climate changes, there is increasing urgency to enhance existing or develop new approaches to help societies address some of their most pressing challenges. For example, to meet the Paris climate goals to hold “the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels”, CO2 will need to be removed from the atmosphere at rates of up to 10 GtCO2/y. By 2050 it is projected that global food production will need to increase by >50%. And global energy demands are expected to continue to rise including a doubling of electricity needs by 2050. Current trends in global aquaculture show that across many sectors, there is dramatic and impressive growth in production that exceeds the growth of nearly all other major energy or food systems. However, most of the current production in aquaculture is focused on the food sector even though aquaculture can play a direct or indirect role in addressing other grand challenges. For example, several forms of aquaculture are emerging as part of integrated technologies for carbon sequestration or other negative carbon industries. Aquaculture across a variety of species is also being advanced to develop low carbon biofuels. And aquaculture is being used to grow coral reefs or enhance coastal salt marshes or oyster reefs as a form of green infrastructure towards habitat restoration and buffering against coastal erosion through wave energy absorption and land accretion. These and other approaches expand the portfolio of applications for aquaculture and present the opportunity to grow the industry beyond its current focus on food production. Here I review the major drivers of society’s most pressing challenges, how the global aquaculture industry is currently (and positively) responding to these needs, and areas of opportunity for the industry to expand into other sectors. I show that beyond its important and expanding role in feeding the globe, aquaculture also has the potential to positively impact other areas of global importance towards growing a more sustainable future.