Merki: Kolefnisspor

Skýrslur

The effects of the Icelandic demersal trawling fleet renewal on product carbon footprint / Áhrif endurnýjunar fiskiskipaflotans á kolefnisspor afurða

Útgefið:

27/05/2025

Höfundar:

Guðrún Svana Hilmarsdóttir, Jónas R. Viðarsson, Birgir Örn Smárason, Sæmundur Elíasson, Ólafur Ögmundarson

Styrkt af:

The AVS fund, the Icelandic Food Innovation Fund / Matvælasjóður and the Research fund of the University of Iceland

Tengiliður

Jónas Rúnar Viðarsson

Sviðsstjóri rannsókna

jonas@matis.is

This report presents the background, implementation, results and discussions connected to a peer-reviewed scientific journal article published in the Journal of Cleaner Production in November 2024. Scientific journals have strict requirements regarding the length of articles, and therefore it was not possible to present all the details that the authors would have liked in the paper. This report therefore provides additional information that was not included in.
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There has been a major renewal of the Icelandic trawler fleet since the turn of the century, while the number of such vessels has decreased by almost half. It has been claimed that the new vessels are much more fuel-efficient and that the carbon footprint of the products must therefore have decreased as results. Data on oil imports to fishing vessels seem to support these claims.

To better analyse the impacts of the fleet renewal on the carbon footprint of fish catches, several representatives from the Icelandic bottom trawler sector joined forces with experts from Matís, the University of Iceland and the University of Akureyri that work on assessing the environmental impacts in production systems. Data was collected from 11 trawlers over a 10-year period and a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology was applied to analyse their carbon footprint per unit of catch, and then a comparison was made between older and newer vessels to examine if there is a statistically significant difference. The vessels in the sample were chosen to provide a good cross-section of the Icelandic bottom-trawl fleet in terms of size, age, catch composition and location around the country. The sample included four new vessels that were purchased to replace older vessels, i.e. a comparison was made between old and newer vessels from the same fishing company, with the same catch quotas and even the same crew.

The results of the analysis revealed that the renewal of the trawl fleet alone has not had a significant impact on the carbon footprint per unit of catch. Three of the four new vessels examined did not show lower carbon footprint than the older vessels they replaced. The fourth vessel, however, showed a significant reduction in the carbon footprint, but that may be because it replaced two older vessels. The most likely explanation is therefore that since the catch quotas of two vessels were combined on one new vessel, it is the quota status and fishing pattern that had the dominant effect, rather than the age of the vessels. These results consistent with previous studies in Iceland, which have shown that the state of fish stocks, catch quotas, and fishing patterns are by far the most important factors when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions per unit of catch. Thus, the concentration of catch quotas and the reduction in the number of vessels have had a decisive effect on reducing the carbon footprint, rather than fleet renewal. However, it is worth bearing in mind that comparisons between years can be difficult as stock abundance and distribution, as well as catch patterns can vary greatly from year to year.

The results of the life cycle analysis also provided information on the average carbon footprint per unit of catch for the vessels in the sample. This is very important information, as such a comprehensive analysis of the carbon footprint of bottom-trawl catches has not been carried out in Iceland before. Previous data only covered individual trawlers over much shorter periods. The results show that the carbon footprint of a landed cod catch is 0.7 kg CO2 equivalent/kg catch, 0.8 kg when the carbon footprint is allocated to the edible part of the catch, and 4.5 kg when it is allocated to protein content of the edible parts. Similar results were shown for haddock and saithe, but the carbon footprint of redfish is much higher as the fishing itself is more energy-intensive and the utilisation for human consumption is much lower. These results are similar to comparable studies that have been conducted in recent years in the countries the Icelandic seafood industry prefers to compare with. When these values are compared to other protein sources, it is clear that Icelandic bottom-trawl catches are among the protein sources in the world with the lowest carbon footprint. For example, poultry has more than 12 times the carbon footprint per protein unit than the Icelandic cod, pork has 17 times the footprint, and beef has 80 times the footprint. It should be noted, however, that these are global averages.

It should be noted that the life cycle analysis only covered the fishing part of the value chain and that it did not take into account the effects that have been shown in previous studies to have a negligible effect on the carbon footprint of trawling. It also did not take into account the effects of trawling on the seabed, although in recent years it has been suggested that trawling releases large amounts of CO2 that is captured in bottom sediments. However, the scientific community has not agreed on what these effects actually are. The analysis was carried out in accordance with international standards, ISO 14044, and the results are therefore fully comparable with other studies where the same standards have been followed.

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Skýrslur

Proceedings from a conference on „Environmental impacts andenergy transition in the Nordic seafood sector”

Útgefið:

14/12/2023

Höfundar:

Jónas R. Viðarsson

Styrkt af:

AG-fisk (Nordic council of Ministers Working group for Fisheries and Aquaculture)

Tengiliður

Jónas Rúnar Viðarsson

Sviðsstjóri rannsókna

jonas@matis.is

Fiskur og annað sjávarfang gegnir mikilvægu hlutverki í að tryggja fæðuöryggi, atvinnu og efnahag í heiminum, og þá sér í lagi á Norðurlöndunum. Sjávarfang af Norrænum uppruna kemur auk þess almennt úr sjálfbært nýttum stofnum, er sérlega heilnæmt til neyslu og er í flestum tilvikum með mjög takmarkað kolefnisspor í samanburði við aðra próteingjafa. Það má því að vissu leyti halda því fram að Norrænt sjávarfang sé „sjálfbært ofurfæði“. Neytendur eru hins vegar oft ekki vissir um hvort sjávarfang sé umhverfisvænn kostur. Norrænn sjávarútvegur stendur nú frammi fyrir því tækifæri að taka forystu í orkuskiptum, og þannig geta státað að því að bjóða upp á besta og umhverfisvænasta sjávarfang sem völ er á.

Vinnuhópur um sjávarútveg og fiskeldi (AG-Fisk) sem starfar innan Norðurlandaráðs hefur bent á þessi tækifæri, og sem hluti af formennsku Íslands í ráðinu árið 2023 fjármagnaði AG-fisk verkefni sem ætlað var að stuðla að  tengslamyndun innan Norræns sjávarútvegs til að auka vitund og miðla þekkingu um framfarir í fortíð, nútíð og framtíð hvað varðar sjálfbærni og orkuskipti í sjávarútvegi. Hápunktur verkefnisins var ráðstefna sem haldin var í Reykjavík 13. september 2023, en daginn áður var haldin vinnufundur þar sem tækifæri til aukins Norræns samstarfs voru rædd. Ráðstefnan samanstóð af 13 erindum og sóttu um 150 manns viðburðinn, sem fram fór í Hörpu. Í þessari skýrslu er að finna yfirlit yfir þær framsögur sem fluttar voru á ráðstefnunni. Upptökur frá ráðstefnunni eru einnig aðgengilegar á vefsíðu verkefnisins.
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Seafood is generally a climate-efficient and nutritious type of food. Consumers, however, are often confused as to whether seafood is sustainable or not and what seafood to choose. The Nordic seafood sector has now the opportunity to take the lead in transitioning to low greenhouse gas emissions through energy efficiency measures and shifting to alternative fuels.

The Working Group for Fisheries and Aquaculture (AG-Fisk) within the Nordic council has recognized this, and as part of Iceland’s presidency of the council in 2023, initiated a networking project to raise awareness and share knowledge on past-, present- and future advances in reduction of environmental impacts in Nordic seafood value chains. The highlight of the project was a conference that was held in Reykjavík on 13 September 2023. The conference consisted of 13 presentations and was attended by close to 150 persons. This report contains the proceedings from the conference, representing an abstract of each presentation and the slides presented. Recordings form the conference are also available on the project’s webpage.

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Skýrslur

Life Cycle Assessment on fresh Icelandic cod loins / Vistferilsgreining á ferskum þorskhnökkum

Útgefið:

01/09/2014

Höfundar:

Birgir Örn Smárason, Jónas R. Viðarsson, Gunnar Þórðarson, Lilja Magnúsdóttir

Styrkt af:

AVS (R13 042‐13)

Tengiliður

Birgir Örn Smárason

Fagstjóri

birgir@matis.is

Life Cycle Assessment on fresh Icelandic cod loins /   Vistferilsgreining á ferskum þorskhnökkum

With growing human population and increased fish consumption, the world’s fisheries are not only facing the challenge of harvesting fish stocksin a sustainable manner, but also to limit the environmental impacts along the entire value chain. The fishing industry, like all other industries, contributes to global warming and other environmental impacts with consequent marine ecosystem deterioration. Environmentally responsible producers, distributors, retailers and consumers recognize this and are actively engaged in mapping the environmental impacts of their products and constantly looking for ways to limit the effects. In this project a group of Icelandic researchers and suppliers of fresh Icelandic cod loins carried out Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) within selected value chains. The results were compared with similar research on competing products and potentials for improvements identified. The project included LCA of fresh cod loins sold in the UK and Switzerland from three bottom trawlers and four long‐ liners. The results show that fishing gear has considerable impact on carbon footprint values with numbers ranging from 0.3 to 1.1 kg CO2eq/kg product. The catching phase impacts is however dominated by the transport phase, where transport by air contributes to over 60% of the total CO2 emissions within the chain. Interestingly, transport by sea to the UK emits even less CO2 than the domestic transport.   Minimizing the carbon footprint, and environmental impacts in general, associated with the provision of seafood can make a potentially important contribution to climate change control. Favouring low impact fishing gear and transportation can lead to reduction in CO2 emissions, but that is not always practical or even applicable due to the limited availability of sea freight alternatives, time constrains, quality issues and other factors. When comparing the results with other similar results for competing products it is evident that fresh Icelandic cod loins have moderate CO2 emissions.

Samfara mikilli fólksfjölgun og aukinni fiskneyslu stendur sjávarútvegur á heimsvísu nú frami fyrir því mikilvæga verkefni að nýta fiskstofna á sjálfbæran hátt á sama tíma og þau þurfa að lágmarka öll umhverfisáhrif sem hljótast af veiðum, vinnslu, flutningunum og öðrum hlekkjum í virðiskeðjunni. Sjávarútvegur, líkt og allur annar iðnaður, stuðlar að hlýnun jarðar og hefur jafnframt í för með sér ýmiss önnur umhverfisáhrif sem hafa skaðleg áhrif á lífríki sjávar. Fyrirtækisem vilja sýna félagslega‐ og umhverfislega ábyrgð ísínum rekstri gera sér fulla grein fyrir þessu og sækjast því eftir að fylgjast betur með umhverfisáhrifum sinnar framleiðslu og leita leiða til að draga úr þeim. Með þetta í huga tók hópur íslenskra rannsóknaraðila, sjávarútvegsfyrirtækja og sölu‐  og dreifingaraðila saman höndum, til að framkvæma vistferilsgreiningu (LCA) í völdum virðiskeðjum ferskra þorskhnakka. Niðurstöðurnar voru svo bornar saman við niðurstöður sambærilegra rannsókna sem gerðar hafa verið á samkeppnisvörum, jafnframt því sem leiðir til að draga úr umhverfisáhrifum innan áðurnefndra virðiskeðja voru kannaðar. Rannsóknin náði til ferskra íslenskra þorskhnakka sem seldir eru í Bretlandi og Sviss. Hnakkarnir voru unnir úr afla þriggja togara og fjögurra línubáta. Niðurstöðurnar sýna að tegund veiðarfæris hefur mikil áhrif á sótspor / kolefnisspor afurðanna þar sem línubátarnir komu heilt yfir töluvert betur út en togararnir. Sótspor einstakra skipa í rannsókninni var á bilinu 0.3 til 1.1 kg CO2eq/kg afurð, sem verður að teljast nokkuð lágt í samanburði við fyrri rannsóknir. Þegar kemur að því að skoða alla virðiskeðjuna er það hins vegar flutningshlutinn eða flutningsmátinn sem skiptir langsamlega mestu máli þ.s. sá hluti ber ábyrgð á yfir 60% sótsporsins þegar varan er flutt út með flugi. Sé hún hins vegar flutt út með skipi verður sótspor flutningshlutans sáralítið og fer þá innanlandsflutningur að skipta meira máli en flutningurinn yfir hafið. Lágmörkun umhverfisáhrifa sem hljótast af veiðum, vinnslu og dreifingu sjávarafurða getur haft mikilvægt innlegg í baráttunni gegn hlýnun jarðar. Með því að velja veiðiaðferðir og flutningsmáta með tilliti til sótspors er unnt að draga umtalsvert úr kolefnisútblæstri, en það þarf þó einnig að hafa í huga að það er ekki ávalt mögulegt eða raunhæft að velja eingöngu þá kosti sem hafa lægst sótspor. Niðurstöður þessara rannsóknar og samanburður við niðurstöður sambærilegra rannsókna sýnir að ferskir íslenskir þorskhnakkar sem komnir eru á markað í Bretlandi og Sviss hafa hóflegt sótspor og eru fyllilega samkeppnisfærir við aðrar fiskafurðir eða dýraprótein.

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