Seaweed aquaculture’s potential positive impacts on climate, nature and livelihoods have garnered widespread attention over the past decade. The development of new commercial pathways for farmed seaweeds appears promising, with applications expanding from human consumption, aquaculture feed and hydrocolloids, to biostimulants, methane-reducing livestock feed and bioplastics, among others. However, the risk-reward profiles of emerging use cases are often difficult to analyze, and may be highly location- and scale-dependent.

In this report, we outline our key considerations when we work with entrepreneurs, investors and other funders on financing solutions for farmed seaweed production and commercialization. Structured as a balanced scorecard, our approach evaluates project viability as a function of a project’s net climate, environmental, socioeconomic and financial impacts. While our checklists of project attributes are not intended to be exhaustive – and individual business cases may warrant additional layers of analysis – we believe the framework will facilitate our ongoing dialogues with stakeholders looking to capitalize on the industry’s untapped potential.