Carbon Footprint Important For Traceability

This was pointed out by Mr Polanco at the opening of a conference organised by the Spanish Foundation of Aquaculture Observatory (OESA), in which several experts have been involved in the emission of greenhouse gases.

The Director General of Fisheries Resources and Aquaculture has stated that traceability will determine the quality of aquaculture products, one of the essential factors to increase their added value.

The other factor to enhance this added value is, in his view, the creation of new avenues of research for breeding fish.

He believes that the industry can rely on tools such as labelling to highlight its commitment to environmental issues such as emissions of carbon dioxide.

For its part, the director of the Foundation OESA, Javier Remiro, stressed that reducing the carbon footprint of aquaculture not only be important to traceability, but also to convey to consumers that producers are making an effort towards greater sustainability.

For Mr Remiro, there are general aspects of the production system in which one can intervene to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, including energy consumption, especially in inland aquaculture, and the choice of transport systems and marketing to follow up its "fingerprint."

From the Spanish Association for Standardisation and Certification (AENOR), Ivan Moya said that the industry can count, from 2012, with ISO 14607 "carbon footprint of products" which will set the criteria to quantify emissions of greenhouse gases and the way in which these results may be disclosed.

Regarding the Administration's initiatives in this regard, the Chief of the Energy and Industrial Sectors of the General Office of Mitigation Technologies and Climate Change Office, Rosario Paradinas has indicated that the Government proposes that carbon footprints will be requirement for eligibility for public tenders or a "prize" in these processes.

Speaking to EFEAgro, the Food Manager of Det Norske Veritas Iberia, Javier Soria, has indicated that the carbon footprint has a "very strong" impact in the business economy and may even become a requirement in the market, to aid sales or productivity.

The professor at the University of Santiago de Compostela Gumersindo Feijoo has stressed that the analysis of the carbon footprint aquaculture enterprises will have an impact on business "economics" and "efficiency", and that the dissemination of both ideas have a positive effect on consumers.