Amazon announces that it is funding the world’s first commercial-scale seaweed farm among offshore wind turbines. The project, known as North Sea Farm 1, is being built in a wind farm at sea off the coast of the Netherlands. It aims to test and improve seaweed farming, while also researching the potential of seaweed farms to capture carbon.
By placing the seaweed farm in the unused space between the wind turbines, the project can start on the intensively used North Sea. If the sector scales up further on the space then occupied by wind farms – expected to be around 1 million hectares by 2040 – with good results, this could potentially reduce millions of tons of CO2 annually.
The project is being carried out by a consortium of scientific researchers and partners from the seaweed industry, led by the non-profit seaweed sector organisation North Sea Farmers (NSF). The seaweed farm is expected to become operational by the end of this year. The consortium hopes that North Sea Farm 1 will become a blueprint for offshore seaweed cultivation around the world.
Amazon is making €1.5 million available to establish this unique seaweed farm and conduct a year-long scientific research into CO2 reduction through seaweed cultivation. The investment comes through Amazon’s $100 million global right now Climate Fund. With this fund, Amazon is committed to supporting nature-based solutions, in addition to the work it is doing to become CO2 neutral. Of this, €20 million has been allocated to projects across Europe, to protect biodiversity and preserve, restore and improve Nature in the places where Amazon operates.
North Sea Farm 1 should be the catalyst for scaling up the seaweed sector. This funding provides for the investments needed to build a 10-hectare seaweed farm, which is expected to produce at least 6,000 kg of fresh seaweed in the first year.
This funding will support North Sea Farmers in analysing and improving the production capabilities of the seaweed farm. At the same time, researchers will explore the potential of seaweed farms to remove carbon from the atmosphere and model the impact of large-scale seaweed farming. The non-profit organization hopes these findings will contribute to a better understanding of responsible and commercially viable industry upscaling. North Sea Farm 1 and future similar projects will also provide an opportunity to create jobs within seaweed production or in producing and marketing seaweed products.
Roeland Donker, Country Manager of Amazon Netherlands: “like trees, seaweed absorbs carbon from the atmosphere when it grows. It can also be used to make biodegradable packaging and food and fashion products. We are extremely excited to invest in such an important project, which can give a significant boost to the European seaweed sector.”
The evolution of Agriculture in the North Sea
North Sea Farmers (NSF) has been committed to the seaweed sector in Europe since 2014. The non-profit organization will lead the project and collaborate with a consortium of organizations from all over Europe, involved in the entire seaweed production chain. These include researchers from Plymouth Marine Laboratory, Deltares and Silvestrum Climate Associates, seaweed extract manufacturer Algaia and marine Contractor Van Oord.
EEF Brouwers, manager Farming and technology at NSF: “up to 85,000 full-time jobs could potentially be created in the European seaweed sector if North Sea Farm 1 is succeeded in the future by comparable seaweed farms in the wind farms on the North Sea. These jobs would cover not only the farms at sea, but also the production and sale of products based on seaweed on land.”
As part of the right now Climate Fund to fund nature – based projects in European Communities, Amazon has already invested in a nature and Wildlife Restoration Fund in France, a reforestation program in Italy, an urban renewal program in Germany and a reforestation and tree planting project in the UK. In addition, Amazon has funded the conservation and restoration of forests in the Appalachian Mountains in the United States, the Agroforestry and Restoration Accelerator program in the Brazilian Amazon forest and Amazon is a key member of the LEAF Coalition, a new global public-private initiative to mobilize at least $1 billion for the protection of the world’s tropical rainforests.
