{"id":229148,"date":"2024-07-22T19:52:14","date_gmt":"2024-07-22T19:52:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newhampshiredigitalnews.com\/index.php\/2024\/07\/22\/meet-the-startup-thats-making-seaweed-more-sustainable\/"},"modified":"2024-07-22T19:52:14","modified_gmt":"2024-07-22T19:52:14","slug":"meet-the-startup-thats-making-seaweed-more-sustainable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newhampshiredigitalnews.com\/index.php\/2024\/07\/22\/meet-the-startup-thats-making-seaweed-more-sustainable\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet the startup that’s making seaweed more sustainable"},"content":{"rendered":"


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<\/span>Editor\u2019s note: <\/em><\/span>Around the world, innovative businesses are helping to solve some of the biggest environmental challenges of our time. Conservation International\u2019s investment fund,<\/em>\u00a0CI Ventures<\/a><\/em>, provides funding and support for early-stage companies that are\u00a0benefiting people and nature. In this occasional series, startup founders join CI Ventures investment experts to share their origin stories<\/em>.<\/em>\u00a0<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

In the past decade, seaweed production has boomed<\/a> as researchers and investors eye its potential: It\u2019s been heralded as a sustainable superfood<\/a>, a biodegradable replacement<\/a> for plastic packaging and a feed supplement<\/a> to cut cows\u2019 methane emissions.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Yet alongside seaweed\u2019s promise, there are pitfalls. The supply chain is riddled with unsustainable and exploitative practices that can degrade the environment and hurt farmers\u2019 livelihoods.<\/span><\/p>\n

CI Ventures investee Coast 4C<\/a>, a seaweed trading company in the Philippines, wants to change that by shifting farmers to practices that increase the supply of high quality, sustainable seaweed \u2014 and ensuring they are fairly compensated for their work.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Conservation News sat down with Coast 4C CEO Nick Hill and Gracie White, who leads CI Ventures\u2019 ocean investments, to learn how they are building a more transparent and environmentally-sound seaweed supply chain.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Seaweed growing on a Coast 4C farm in the Philippines. \u00a9 Gracie White<\/h6>\n

<\/span>Let\u2019s start with what sparked your interest in seaweed and Coast 4C?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>Gracie White:<\/strong> I worked in seaweed aquaculture<\/a> for years \u2014 first for a kelp farm, then with a type of seaweed called Asparagopsis, which, when used as cow feed, has been shown to reduce the amount<\/a> of methane they produce. Seaweed farming has enormous potential to benefit people and ecosystems \u2014 from building resilience to climate change to improving livelihoods \u2014 but there are still challenges to farming it in an environmentally and socially responsible way.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Asia produces 97 percent<\/a> of the world\u2019s seaweed, predominantly in China, Indonesia and the Philippines \u2014 and almost all is grown by small family farms. The rest of the world is just beginning to catch on. While seaweed is in almost everything, it\u2019s not well regulated and there’s no set standards for how tropical seaweeds are grown and sold. Just like large-scale agriculture on land, seaweed farming can cause environmental issues \u2014 including habitat destruction and plastic pollution.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Then, when it comes to selling their product, seaweed farmers in Southeast Asia often have access to only one local trader, which leaves them vulnerable to pricing monopolies. To reach the international market, which could provide a higher price, farmers must be able to show quality and consistency in their product \u2014 but currently, there are very few support systems in place to help them do so.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

How is Coast 4C working to change this?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>Nick Hill:<\/strong> One of the biggest issues in the seaweed market is that people don\u2019t know where their seaweed comes from because the supply chain is long and complicated. We connect small-scale farmers directly to global brands that value environmental and social responsibility. Currently, we\u2019re working with 500 farmers in the Philippines \u2014 85 percent of whom are women. Our farmers must follow environmental and social standards, for example, by eliminating single-use plastics \u2014 like the rope seaweed grows on \u2014 that are responsible for about half of all plastic pollution<\/a> in coastal communities. In return, we guarantee farmers a premium price for their seaweed, which increases their incomes and reduces their dependence on fishing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This matters because more than 95 percent of tropical seaweed is grown in the western Pacific\u2019s Coral Triangle, a biodiversity hotspot that spans 6 million square kilometers (2.3 million square miles) and is known as the \u201cAmazon of the Seas\u201d because of the wildlife it supports. We\u2019re helping communities set up marine protected areas that integrate seaweed farms within them. This creates a safe and healthy place for seaweed farming, alongside helping to restore fish populations and mangrove and coral habitat. It also incentivizes community enforcement of the protected areas because they are economically dependent on the seaweed.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Coast 4C repurposes plastic bottles destined for landfills or the ocean as floats on seaweed farms.\u00a0\u00a9 Gracie White <\/h6>\n

There are also social issues. Many seaweed farmers struggle to make a livable wage.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/span> <\/p>\n

NH:<\/strong> Yes, and when farmers can\u2019t make a living wage by growing seaweed, they often turn to fishing \u2014 at times using extremely destructive practices like dynamite<\/a>, poison or bottom trawling<\/a>, which can destroy coral reefs and entangle or maim marine mammals, such as endangered sea turtles. By raising the value of seaweed, we\u2019re supporting farmers\u2019 livelihoods and helping to protect the environment.\u00a0<\/span> \"\"\/<\/p>\n

We can also help boost production. Seaweed production on farms is low in many places because of outdated farming practices. This can be exacerbated by climate change and a lack of genetic diversity in seaweed, which makes it vulnerable to disease. Coast 4C is combining farmers\u2019 knowledge of their ecosystems with the latest scientific advances to improve growing practices and develop new, more climate resilient strains of seaweed. And we help farmers with access to capital to implement these practices.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>In December 2021, super typhoon Odette<\/a> struck the Philippines. How have the farmers and Coast 4C recovered?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>GW:<\/strong> The typhoon struck just as we were finalizing our investment deal. It destroyed 90 percent of Coast 4C\u2019s infrastructure, and all the seaweed farms they were working with. Knowing the company \u2014 and the farmers they work with \u2014 would need our investment more than ever, we were able to restructure the deal to give them time to recover, rebuild and pay back the loan over a longer period.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>NH:<\/strong> CI Ventures stuck with us, allowing us to provide financial aid packages that helped farmers get back on their feet. After the typhoon, there was nothing left \u2014 and for three weeks, all communications were cut off. That experience has led us to think about how we prepare for future typhoons \u2014 from developing climate resilient strains of seaweed, to building a network of typhoon resilient seaweed nurseries and disaster risk reduction plans that allows us to protect some of the crop, so when the next storm hits, we have something to rebuild from.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Among so many challenges, what makes you hopeful about this work?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>NH:<\/strong> After losing so much to Odette, much of our energy has gone toward helping farmers restore their crops. Now, we\u2019re focused on growth. Within the next two years, we\u2019re planning to expand our work to Indonesia. There is so much interest and excitement around seaweed right now \u2014 new markets<\/a> and technologies are shaping the way we use this ancient plant. But the bottleneck is a supply of quality, traceable seaweed that grows in harmony with nature. That\u2019s where we can help.<\/span><\/p>\n

More stories from CI Ventures investees:<\/strong> <\/span><\/p>\n

Mary Kate McCoy is a staff writer at Conservation International. Want to read more stories like this? Sign up for email updates<\/a>. Also, please consider supporting our critical work<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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Editor\u2019s note: Around the world, innovative businesses are helping to solve some of the biggest environmental challenges of our time. Conservation International\u2019s investment fund,\u00a0CI Ventures,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":229149,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[189],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-229148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nature"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newhampshiredigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newhampshiredigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newhampshiredigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newhampshiredigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newhampshiredigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newhampshiredigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229148\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newhampshiredigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/229149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newhampshiredigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newhampshiredigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newhampshiredigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}