Leroy Seafood Group and the Bellona Foundation have joined forces to form the company Ocean Forest. The goal of Ocean Forest is to establish new forms of biomass production linked to aquaculture. Ocean Forest wants to start research and development, innovation and implementation of new forms of biomass.

Ocean Forest is founded in a time when the world faces incredibly tough challenges. If we as an environmental foundation are to achieve our mission, it will not do to simply point out problems. We must find solutions and dare to take part in their development and implementation.

Ocean Forest will cooperate with various research and technology communities and develop solutions that reduce costs for bioproduction in the sea. The company will develop products for food, feed, energy and raw materials for industry and agriculture. Ocean Forest works under strict sustainability criteria to develop restorative solutions.

World-leading

Ocean Forest has a vision of large-scale sustainable production of biomass and energy along the Norwegian coast. We will establish ourselves as a world-leading company in research on synergies between integrated solutions. The results will be used to prepare a business concept for commercial deployment of new solutions for biomass production on a large scale. This will be achieved by integrating a range of technological solutions and unique ecological cycles. In the sea interactions between a number of species and the environment they live in develop naturally. The results are harvested in the form of higher output and a better environment.

Seaweeds – also called macro algae – can be grown on a large scale together with farmed fish. So can mussels, benthic and microalgae. Large-scale cultivation of algae and shells will help to reduce climate change through its uptake and storage of CO2. Ocean Forest wants to build plants that remove more CO2 than it generates and thus develop key environmental solutions through synergies between biology and technology.

Creating opportunities

These solutions will create better production conditions for existing industry and creating the basis for new products such as food, feed for fish and animals in a world with significant population growth. Energy and fertilizer are other products that can result from Ocean Forest.

The short-term goal of the company is to establish a functioning development and innovation system that can demonstrate the possibilities for sustainable, integrated multi-trophic aquaculture and storage of CO2 in biomass. The site will also be open to research in cooperation with third parties. Its location is identified and it will be fully operational in 2014.

Experiences from this site will form the basis for commercialization of solutions within five years.