Integrated Annual Report 2019
matter, rich in carbon and phosphorus can be removed from the discharge, dewatered, dried and recycled as fuel for biogas or used as soil fertilizer. This waste is used by local companies to limit the transport distance. Collecting particulate organic matter from the effluent of land based facilities is important to secure a good environment in our fjords, and also to make a contribution to the green economy linking the aquaculture to recycling renewable resources. In 2019, we reused a total of 166 tons of solid sludge and 12,511 tons of wet sludge as composting or fuel for biogas production. In Chile, sludge is disposed of according to national regulations and a pilot project is expected to run in 2020 to evaluate the possibility of composting sludge. Freshwater use Similarly to what occurs in the wild, farmed-raised salmon spend the initial phase of production growing in freshwater. Although we do not farm in countries with freshwater scarcity we still focus our efforts and resources on freshwater efficiency at our freshwater farming units, feed and processing plants. We continue to invest to comply with local regulations and where possible improve water use efficiency through technological improvements. In 2019, we developed a freshwater use policy (available at mowi.com) guiding our business units to key actions on freshwater use stewardship. In 2019, freshwater use at Mowi’s freshwater production units, feed plant and primary and secondary processing plants around the world summed up to 360,672,814 m3, from which 99.1% was used for our smolt production in flow-through systems and recirculating aquaculture systems, 0.8% at our processing plants and 0.1% at our feed plant in Norway. This is an increase as compared with 2018 (91,637,897 m3 ) mainly driven by improved reporting and expansion in smolt production. Benthic Impact In 2019, we continued to run mandatory national surveys to measure the potential impact of organic loading from our farming operations on the seabed. Results show that, on average, 90% (92% in 2018) of our sea sites surveyed in 2019 have a minimal impact on faunal communities and/or sediment chemistry near to the fish pens. In two of the regions in Norway (South and Mid) 100% of our sites were classified as very good or good. When the impact on the seabed is considered unsatisfactory (two sites in the Faroes, four in Scotland, three in Chile, three in Canada West, two in Canada East, three in Ireland, one in Norway), we take corrective action. This may include stopping or reducing production, repositioning the pens and/or increasing the fallow period, i.e. the time between production cycles, to allow the seabed time to recover from organic loading. Compared with 2018, the largest difference in benthic impact originated from Mowi Scotland. Where breaches of environmental standards have occurred to date, it is reasonable to conclude, based on evidence, that a significant proportion of these failures have arisen due to the deficiencies of previous environmental
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modelling. The ability to determine where our impacts may occur within the environment has always been critical to our industry and a key tool in assessing the environmental sustainability of our farming locations is the use of environmental modelling. Modelling is used in the first instance to demonstrate that proposed fish farming locations are likely to comply with minimum environmental standards relating to the spatial extent and intensity of any impacts. The advanced modelling and enhanced monitoring that the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) is introducing with its new regulatory approach will provide for more meaningful assessments on which the environmental performance of sites can be assessed. We expect this to result in overall improvements in levels of industry compliance. A number of Mowi Scotland’s sites will transition across to these new assessments in 2020. Other technologies such as those being researched in Scotland, as part of the MeioMetBar eDNA project will be available in the near future and will provide more definitive evidence of environmental impact through the current regulatory framework, potentially including near real-time monitoring of seabed health. It is hoped that the MeioMetBar phase II project will result in a regulatory tool in Scotland that will be available within the next three years. Biodiversity-related projects In 2019 we ran a total of 15 projects aimed at understanding and minimising our potential impact on biodiversity. In Norway we contributed to several projects aiming to increase the understanding of potential impact of aquaculture on wild fish populations. These included studies on the reproductive success of wild Atlantic cod as well as migration patterns of wild trout and salmon smolts. This study points to no clear systematic changes in the amount of annual fry of cod in the growing areas associated with the spawning grounds near the fish farms. In region Mid in Norway, a project comparing dispersal models of organic matter from fish farms showed the value of such tools for understanding the fate of organic waste from aquaculture sites and improved benthic monitoring. Also in region Mid, we worked in collaboration with NTNU to monitor the presence and quality of wild smolts in rivers, with the aim of developing improved planning tools for establishing new sites. We also continued our collaboration with Marin Overvükning Rogaland and Hordaland to monitor potential effects of fish farming on the water quality in these two counties. In 2019 we continued our involvement in projects aiming to develop and validate eDNA tools for benthic monitoring in Norway, Scotland and Canada East. This work supports the further development of an efficient, reliable and environmentally-friendly approach for assessing benthic impact. In Scotland we are part of a project aiming to establish a genetic baseline for wild salmon local to our freshwater sites, this work will support the monitoring of genetic introgression between wild and farmed salmon moving forward. We are also involved in a Scottish project aiming to develop and improve management tools for farmed/wild fish interactions in terms of sea lice dispersion models