With the Green Deal, the EU has deci­ded on its road­map to meet major chal­len­ges such as envi­ron­men­tal degra­dati­on and cli­ma­te chan­ge in the com­ing deca­des. We exp­lain the goals of the from “farm to fork” stra­te­gy of the Green Deal and how we can achie­ve them with the SEAWATER Cube.

Envi­ron­men­tal degra­dati­on and cli­ma­te chan­ge are the major chal­len­ges of the 21st cen­tu­ry. A new growth stra­te­gy is deman­ded with the aim at a modern and resour­ce-effi­ci­ent eco­no­my. A pro­mi­sing road­map for the future should be the Euro­pean Green Deal.

The varie­ty and quan­ti­ties of food in Euro­pe can hard­ly be sur­pas­sed. We live in abundance and all the nee­ded goods are avail­ab­le at any time and in many dif­fe­rent varia­ti­ons. But what is actual­ly behind the­se count­less pro­ducts, whe­re are they pro­du­ced and is the­re any reli­able indi­ca­tor for good quality?

Effec­ti­ve water tre­at­ment in aquacul­tu­re can­not be done without the work of bac­te­ria, becau­se in spe­cial­ly built bio­fil­ters they often con­vert toxic excre­ments of the fish into ani­mal and envi­ron­ment­al­ly friend­ly sub­s­tan­ces. Howe­ver, if bac­te­ria are pre­sent in lar­ger num­bers in the bea­ring tank, they can cau­se unde­s­i­ra­ble side effects. The­re­fo­re, in clo­sed recir­cu­la­ti­on sys­tems, a pro­te­in skim­mer is used in addi­ti­on to bio­lo­gi­cal filters.

Micro­plastics are ever­y­whe­re – in the sea, in the air, in cos­me­tic pro­ducts. The small plastic par­ti­cles have beco­me an inte­gral part of our envi­ron­ment. Accord­ing to sci­en­tists and rese­ar­chers, the­re are vir­tual­ly no more plastic-free are­as on earth. Micro­plastics are ubi­qui­tous, espe­cial­ly in the food sec­tor. Pack­a­ging and plastic bags often end up across the rivers in the oce­ans, whe­re they are con­su­med by fish and other mari­ne ani­mals as sup­po­sed food. Ulti­mate­ly, micro­plastics have also beco­me part of our diet. In the new blog post we shed light on the topic of micro­plastics and its effects in detail and give hel­pful tips for easy reduction.

Living in the city and at the same time shop­ping for regio­nal, fresh pro­ducts wit­hin wal­king distance: That sounds like an ide­al that would have a las­ting posi­ti­ve effect on our envi­ron­ment. This type of food sup­ply is still lar­ge­ly a long way off, but the­re are alrea­dy some exci­ting and rea­listic con­cepts. „Urban far­ming“ is the gene­ric term for the pri­ma­ry food pro­duc­tion in urban are­as or the neigh­bo­ring regi­on, in simp­le terms it means agri­cul­tu­re in the city. In the new blog post, we high­ligh­ted both chal­len­ges and oppor­tu­nities for the imple­men­ta­ti­on of spe­ci­fic urban far­ming projects.

Cli­ma­te chan­ge is cur­r­ent­ly the most dis­cus­sed topic in socie­ty and is beco­m­ing incre­a­singly important for most peop­le. How explo­si­ve the cli­ma­te cri­sis real­ly is, is also made clear in count­less press and media reports. We have loo­ked at various fac­tors that play a role in the cli­ma­te cri­sis. In our blog post, we would like to take a clo­ser look at them and high­light the actions that are necessa­ry to achie­ve grea­ter sus­taina­bi­li­ty and envi­ron­men­tal friendliness.

In order to make the right choices from the wide ran­ge of pro­ducts offe­red by various manu­fac­tu­rers and brands when shop­ping for food, many con­su­mers use seals and cer­ti­fi­ca­tes as a gui­de. The­se were ori­gi­nal­ly crea­ted to asso­cia­te pro­ducts with cer­tain cha­rac­te­ris­tics and to pro­vi­de con­su­mers with a basis for making decisi­ons. The seals of appro­val can be clas­si­fied accord­ing to envi­ron­men­tal or social aspects as well as accord­ing to the pro­duct groups to which they refer. Learn more about it in our blog post.

As con­su­mers and buy­ers, we are used to full ref­ri­gera­ted coun­ters in Ger­ma­ny: whe­ther beef, pork, poul­try or fish, ever­ything is always avail­ab­le in rough quan­ti­ties. If we now con­si­der how many super­mar­kets the­re are in our area, this con­su­mer offer quick­ly adds up. What con­su­mers often fail to con­si­der, howe­ver, is that enor­mous resour­ces are requi­red for the growth of the ani­mals. Logi­cal­ly, the lar­ger the ani­mal, the more water and feed are nee­ded. Due to the incre­a­sing scar­ci­ty of water and the rising pro­te­in requi­re­ments of our rapidly gro­wing world popu­la­ti­on the ques­ti­on ari­ses as to which ani­mal is most effi­ci­ent in the use of natu­ral resour­ces in terms of mee­ting our pro­te­in requirements?

Over the last deca­des, issu­es like sus­taina­bi­li­ty, envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion and mind­ful­ness have beco­me more pre­sent in Ger­ma­ny. The­re­with, the health-con­­scious beha­vi­or of the con­su­mers rose and due to their demand, the ran­ge of whole­food pro­ducts and whole­food shops grew. Even the selec­tion of healt­hy foods and bio­lo­gi­cal ori­gi­na­ted pro­ducts in drugs­to­res expan­ded. So various stu­dies sur­vey­ed dif­fe­rent age groups with regard to their nut­ri­ti­on habits, pre­fe­ren­ces, the sub­ject coo­king and more ali­­men­­ta­­ry-rele­­vant ques­ti­ons. We loo­ked into it and sum­ma­ri­zed the results of the studies.