Environment

Environment

The fish industry is concerned about the impact on the climate and takes responsibility in any case.

The world consumption per capita of seafood products, estimated by the FAO, is equal to 17 kg and is constantly growing. Fish consumption in the EU has reached 22 kg per capita and affects for 10% of world fish consumption, which sees its concentration in Asia, especially China.

In the last decade, the share of fish products destined for human consumption has increased by about 5 percentage points, up to over 81%, and in 2011 the fish production has reached its record equal to 149 million tons. To date, fish supplies over 15% of the animal proteins consumed by the world population and 6.1% of the total proteins. With over 60 million tons, aquaculture accounts for 40.5% of total fish production, of which over 90% of production comes from developing countries, first of all China (62.5% of the total).

Although to a lesser extent than breeding, fishing and aquaculture also contribute to greenhouse gas emissions during the capture operations and during the transport, processing and storage of fish (emissions are mainly related to the abundance of stocks, the distance of the fishing areas and the technology used). Each ton of fuel used produces 2.25 tons of CO2; the impact ranges between 0.09 kg of CO2eq for 1 kg of fresh mussels, up to 0.22 kg of CO2eq for fresh mackerel fillets (if fillets are bought frozen the value rises more than 4 times), to 1.2 kg of CO2eq for fresh cod (almost triplicate value if you buy frozen) and finally up to 3 kg of CO2eq for shrimps and 20.2 kg of CO2eq for the lobster (values that depend for the most part from the fuel of the fishing vessels operating in the North Sea).

To date, in many areas of the world, fish stocks have been exploited to the maximum of their production capacities and climate change is already modifying the distribution, both marine and freshwater species, as well as influencing the seasonality of biological processes. The species that live in warm waters are pushed towards the poles and they are undergoing changes in habitat and reproductivity: in the long run all this will involve unpredictable consequences for the seafood production.