FoodSmart City Dublin: A Framework for Sustainable Seafood
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FoodSmart City Dublin: A Framework for Sustainable Seafood Cordula Scherer 1
& Poul Holm
1
Accepted: 20 November 2019/ # Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
Abstract
We propose the FoodSmart City framework as a transdisciplinary avenue to promote sustainable seafood consumption. We argue that a change in human seafood consumption towards eating at lower trophic levels may be helped by discovering forgotten cultural practices and tapping into locally-sourced marine resources. We set out a framework of knowledge exchange and production between academia, businesses, and civil society to promote and assist healthy and ecologically sustainable living using digital tools and intangible cultural heritage while engaging with innovative chefs and educationalists. The framework targets Dublin City, Ireland, but may potentially be replicated in other contexts. Keywords FoodSmartCity . Sustainable seafood . Dublin Bay . Consumer engagement . Marine cultural heritage . Innovating historical recipes
Introduction A modern, affluent lifestyle is connected with safe, healthy and tasty food. Seafood is increasingly a popular choice, especially after the sushi revolution of the last couple of decades and the emergence of many celebrity chefs. But the change to a healthy diet has come with dirty consequences as additional pressure has been put on a marine ecosystem already heavily impacted by fishing, waste, greenhouse gases, climate change, etc. In November 2017, the European Academies published a report on Food from the Oceans (2017), which was subsequently endorsed by the EU Group of Chief Scientific Advisors as the foundation for a range of recommendations (Scientific Advice Mechanism 2017). The central question put to the European Academies was: ‘How can more food and biomass be obtained from the oceans in a way that does not deprive future generations of their benefits?’ The scientific evidence in answering
* Cordula Scherer [email protected]
1
Trinity Centre for Environmental Humanities, School of Histories and Humanities, Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin, Dublin 2, Ireland
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Food Ethics
(2020) 5:7
this question clearly points to sustainable aquaculture and capture at lower trophic levels as a way to bring about such an increase in biomass. The most feasible potential identified for expansion globally lies in mariculture of herbivore filter feeders and cultivated algae/seaweed for direct human consumption or as an ecologically-efficient source of feed for farmed marine carnivores. Another point addressed in the report is that ocean-derived protein should play an increasingly important role globally to fulfil the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. On average, humans feed at trophic level 2.21 (with some variation for different regions of the world: 2.04–2.57). Agricultural plants and herbivore animals constitute, on average, 98% of human food, with the remaining 1.6% (by weight basis) coming from the marine environment and particularly from fisheries and mariculture (Duarte et al
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