Environmental performance of blue foods

A range of environmental stressors are estimated for farmed and wild capture blue foods, including bivalves, seaweed, crustaceans and finfish, with the potential to inform more sustainable diets. Fish and other aquatic foods (blue foods) present an opportunity for more sustainable diets(1,2). Yet comprehensive comparison has been limited due to sparse inclusion of blue foods in environmental impact studies(3,4) relative to the vast diversity of production(5). Here we provide standardized estimates of greenhouse gas, nitrogen, phosphorus, freshwater and land stressors for species groups covering nearly three quarters of global production. We find that across all blue foods, farmed bivalves and seaweeds generate the lowest stressors. Capture fisheries predominantly generate greenhouse gas emissions, with small pelagic fishes generating lower emissions than all fed aquaculture, but flatfish and crustaceans generating the highest. Among farmed finfish and crustaceans, silver and bighead carps have the lowest greenhouse gas, nitrogen and phosphorus emissions, but highest water use, while farmed salmon and trout use the least land and water. Finally, we model intervention scenarios and find improving feed conversion ratios reduces stressors across all fed groups, increasing fish yield reduces land and water use by up to half, and optimizing gears reduces capture fishery emissions by more than half for some groups. Collectively, our analysis identifies high-performing blue foods, highlights opportunities to improve environmental performance, advances data-poor environmental assessments, and informs sustainable diets.

Automated summary

This study provides estimates of environmental stressors for farmed and wild capture blue foods, showing that farmed bivalves and seaweeds generate the lowest stressors while capture fisheries predominantly generate greenhouse gas emissions.