Is cultivated seafood really better for the environment?

Although it’s still too early to conduct a thorough environmental impact study or Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) of cultivated seafood, we are confident in the potential of our cultivation process to deliver significant benefits to the planet.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) projects that we’ll see a global spike in seafood demand of 30% by 2030, which equates to a supply gap of more than 20 million tons per year. We believe Wildtype’s cultivated seafood will help reduce pressure on today’s wild-caught seafood sources, keeping more fish in oceans and rivers - a big win for protecting the biodiversity of our oceans.

Additionally, we have increasingly better data demonstrating how harmful commercial fishing is, not just on wild fish stocks, but on the climate crisis as well. Deep sea trawling alone - just one type of deep sea fishing - produces more greenhouse gas emissions every year than the global aviation industry.

We are committed to thoroughly assessing and managing our environmental footprint as we ramp up production. As we bring Wildtype seafood to market, we will move from facilities designed to establish proof of concept to larger-scale facilities purpose-built to make our salmon more accessible, with a careful eye on key sustainability metrics (e.g., greenhouse gas emissions, input efficiency, and waste minimization). We will continue to be active participants in independent studies to quantify emissions associated with this new production method.