Vancouver Island Company — Cascadia Seaweed — Recognized on the World Stage through a Collaboration with Oceans 2050

The 2021

was awarded by the

to

, of which

Cascadia Seaweed

is a member along with a consortium of twenty global seaweed farmers.

Divers collect sediment samples from an Oceans 2050 Seaweed Carbon Farming Project farm in South Korea.

The Prize is bestowed yearly to projects that display proven carbon uptake, drawdown or sequestration efforts.

Cascadia Seaweed is growing to be the largest provider of ocean cultivated seaweed in North America with a focus on delivering sustainable snack food products to the market in the fall of 2021, among other high-value verticals including carbon offsets. They are also the only Canadian company and one of only two organizations in North America involved in Oceans 2050’s Seaweed Project. 

Oceans 2050, a foundation led by

(granddaughter of the famed

), established the Seaweed Project in an effort to quantify carbon sequestration by seaweed farms globally, which will ultimately help create market incentives for seaweed aquaculture as a solution to help address the climate crisis. 

The award is timely given the recent

and the call for radical decarbonization of the atmosphere and recarbonization of the biosphere. “The science suggests that seaweed will absorb 20 times more carbon than terrestrial vegetation,” says William Collins, chair of Cascadia Seaweed. “Canada needs to make the necessary investments to re-build seaweed forests along our coastline to improve ocean health and to produce a new, regenerative protein to feed growing populations.” Collins also indicated that seaweed farming can be used to help solve many other global challenges such as warming ocean temperatures, loss of biodiversity, reducing other GHGs, and food security. 

“It’s significant to see Oceans 2050 and the Seaweed Project recognized globally as a climate solution through the Keeling Curve Prize, as this will help Canadians see the potential of this growing sector,” said Collins.

About the Global Warming Mitigation Project and the Keeling Curve Prize

The Global Warming Mitigation Project is a nonprofit society which identifies, activates, and accelerates projects and programs worldwide that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase carbon uptake. One of their two current projects is called the Keeling Curve Prize which awards 10 organizations $25,000 each in support of their work to reduce human-made greenhouse gas emissions.

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About Oceans 2050

Established in 2018, Oceans 2050’s mission is to mobilize a global alliance to restore the world’s oceans to abundance by 2050 by enabling and amplifying how people and companies across all sectors can be contributors to a common vision of an abundant future. Founded and led by Alexandra Cousteau, the platform identifies and develops solutions that harness the power of markets to reshape an ocean strategy fit for current and future challenges by producing impact at a scale that is meaningful for the oceans, the climate, and the millions of people that depend on them.