Mrs Karlotta Rieve
1Hatch Blue with funding from The World Bank Group and The Nest Family Office
Correspondence: Karlotta Rieve, karlotta@hatch.blue
The seaweed industry produces >1/4 of total aquaculture output and with investment in more climate resilient technology, the sector is scalable. However, existing markets are only growing at 3-5% annually – too low for the seaweed industry to make a significant contribution to Sustainable Development Goal targets. To meet global objectives, sustainable seaweed mariculture as well as new markets for seaweed biomass have to scale. As part of our global seaweed report, Hatch has assessed market opportunities of novel products and applications from seaweed biomass. This work identifies new short, medium and long – term market entry points for seaweed application across a number of industrial sectors, such as Animal feed, Bioplastics, Biostimulants, Fabrics, Construction, Biogas, Nutraceuticals and Pharmaceuticals. Matched with our in-field research across the major seaweed producing regions globally to analyze the current state of seaweed supply, a gap analysis will outline current technology constraints and highlight innovation opportunities and investment needs.
The International Seaweed Symposium will provide the first stage to share our preliminary findings of this work with the global seaweed community. By providing information relevant to the decision making of the public and private sector, Hatch, the World Bank and the Nest Family Office hope to catalyze the adoption of innovation all along the seaweed value chain.