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Peter Massie spent a decade inside Canada’s energy bureaucracy, where he learned the importance of strategic industry policy.  

That makes Massie ideally positioned to make the case that Canada needs to rebuild its energy strategy to seize the rare opportunity presented by geothermal energy.  

Canada sits atop an enormous, inexhaustible supply of clean geothermal energy, but the country currently lacks a cohesive strategy to unlock that energy for the benefit of Canadians.  

Massie runs the Cascade Institute’s Geothermal Energy Office from Ottawa, guided by a foundational idea: Canada’s greatest energy achievements were not accidents — they were strategized. For example, Canada’s oil and gas industry it is the result of smart, targeted research and development.  

“Maintaining a strong energy sector is no longer just an economic imperative for Canada,” he argues. “It’s an existential one.” 

Energy, Massie says, is quickly becoming the most sought-after global currency. Canada holds the fourth-largest oil reserves on the planet — and sells almost all of it to a single, increasingly unpredictable customer south of the border.  

“Expanding our infrastructure is already showing returns, but it’s a comfortable half-measure,” he says. “And comfort is no longer a viable strategy.” 

The energy is there, but tapping it requires smart cooperation across government, academia and industry. It requires (sometimes risky) business of a country investing in something new. Massie likes to borrow a line from the Harvard economist Michael Porter: “National prosperity is created, not inherited.” 

“Canada’s natural resources were our inheritance,” Massie says. “The technologies that convert them to prosperity are creations of Canadian ingenuity.” 

Massie sees geothermal as an essential companion to Canada’s other energy industries – each of which emerged from deliberate strategy. The CANDU reactor grew out of the Chalk River laboratories and a postwar federal push. Steam-assisted gravity drainage, the made-in-Canada breakthrough that unlocked the deep oil sands, came from a 1970s coalition of government, industry, and academia.  

Peter Massie will be hosting a number of discussions and announcments at the World Geothermal Congress in Calgary, June 2026.

“These projects were defined by strategic long-term thinking, calculated risk-taking, and collaboration across the public and private sectors,” Massie says. In recent years, he argues, Canada has drifted into “a non-strategy — much talk, but little clarity over what, exactly, we need to do as a nation to remain competitive.” 

Massie believes Canada should start with what it’s best at; the country’s deep subsurface expertise — built over decades of oil and gas production — transfers almost directly to new industries like geothermal energy, critical minerals, and carbon capture. Canada is perfectly positioned to be a goethermal leader.  

But Massie is also adamant that technology is never enough on its own. “Technology does not exist in a vacuum,” he says. “Technologies exist in social and economic systems. And when we want to drive a transition, we have to drive a socio-technical transition.” 

That requires the unglamorous work of dissecting regulations, markets, institutions, and public opinion. “There is no such thing as technology neutrality,” he says. “Blunt instruments, such as the carbon price and tax credits, can scale existing industries.  But alone, they just aren’t enough for transformative breakthroughs.” 

For the Cascade Institute — which studies the tangle of interconnected global crises called the polycrisis — geothermal is what’s known as a high-leverage intervention. Geothermal can be a well-timed “nudge” that alleviates strains on multiple global systems at once.  

“By providing a source of clean baseload power, geothermal can relieve all kinds of other systemic stressors, including energy security, powering data centres, and addressing climate change” says Massie.  

Massie spent more than a decade in the federal government, most recently as acting director of strategic policy and techno-economic analysis in Natural Resources Canada’s Office of Energy R&D, modelling how emerging technologies could help Canada decarbonize.  

Nowadays, the stakes are far greater to Massie. He’s a new father, so the future he studies and strategizes for is also the one his daughter will inherit. 

“Canada has faced challenging moments before,” he says. “Each time, we made the choice to invest, innovate, and lean into our strengths. With higher stakes than ever, we now face that choice again: strategize or stagnate.” 

The post Strategize or Stagnate: Peter Massie on Canada’s geothermal moment appeared first on Cascade Institute.

California nurses are celebrating today, June 1, the historic implementation of long-awaited safe nurse-to-patient staffing ratios in the state’s acute psychiatric hospitals (APH) that should dramatically improve the care behavioral health patients receive and that RNs can provide.

The article covers what rights for wetlands need to be recognized as, the responsibilities of humans towards and with wetlands, the legal structures necessary to effectively implement and enforce wetland's rights, and examples of rights of wetlands in practice.

The post Suggested Reading – How Implementing the Rights of Wetlands Provides Benefits to People and Wetlands: Relationships, Rights, Responsibilities, Experiences, and Actions appeared first on CELDF - Community Rights Pioneers - Protecting Nature and Communities.

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The post Latest Newsletter first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

How the Bamako Convention Can Drive Real Implementation of the Basel Convention in Africa

By Gilbert KUEPOUO, Executive Director of Centre de Recherche et d’Education pour le Developpement (CREPD)

The African continent has historically been a dumping ground for hazardous chemicals, technologies, and waste from the global north and from countries such as China, India, and Turkey.

This dumping is the result of brute economic forces, often characterized as “toxic colonialism,” as evidenced by the recent case of Italian waste dumped in Tunisia. The real costs of waste disposal are shifted onto the recipient population and environment, transferring negative externalities born in the global north and other countries onto the African continent. 

As African civil society strives to drive action on waste trade as an urgent environmental and social justice issue in Africa during Africa Day, it is important to examine the global and regional instruments that govern waste trade, their weaknesses, and areas of complementarity and effectiveness. 

At the global level, the Basel Convention on the transboundary movement of hazardous waste and its disposal, adopted in 1989 and entered into force in 1992, regulates the global trade in hazardous and other waste.

While the Basel Ban Amendment (Article 4a of the Basel Convention), adopted in 1995 and entered into force relatively recently on 5 December 2019, prohibits the export of hazardous waste from developed countries (Annex VII) to developing countries (non-Annex VII), it is not applicable to countries that have not ratified it, including many African countries.

Further, the Basel Ban Amendment does not apply to Basel’s Annex II waste, which includes household waste, mixed plastic waste, and non-hazardous e-waste, nor does it apply to as defined by the African Bamako Convention. It is therefore vital for all African countries to ratify both the Basel Ban Amendment and the Bamako Convention.

The Bamako Convention, which I like to refer to as the “African dam regulation”, is a treaty of African nations, created by Africans for Africans, that entered into force in 1998 and is intended to protect the continent against the dumping of hazardous and other waste.

It is a regional agreement accepted by the Basel Convention under its Article 11, which allows legal waste trade agreements that are no less environmentally sound than the Basel Convention, and can, for example, in particular interests of developing countries, be stronger than the Basel Convention. For example, the Bamako Convention offers stronger protections than the Basel Convention in the following ways: 

1. The Bamako Convention considers any waste containing either listed hazardous substances or listed hazardous characteristics as hazardous wastes. The Basel Convention, on the other hand, requires both a hazardous substance and a hazardous characteristic at the same time to qualify as hazardous waste. 

2. The Bamako Convention considers all chemicals, whether they are factually waste or not, as hazardous waste if they are banned or severely restricted for environmental or human health reasons anywhere in the world. The Basel Convention does not consider these banned or severely restricted chemicals as wastes subject to control in Africa. 

3. The Bamako Convention uniquely considers nuclear wastes of all kinds (Y0), as well as wastes collected from households, and incinerator ashes from the burning of wastes collected from households (Y46 and Y47) to be hazardous wastes. The Basel Convention does not consider these wastes to be hazardous waste.

4. The Bamako Convention bans the import of all hazardous wastes into the continent of Africa, as well as the ocean dumping in the waters under the jurisdiction of African States. There are no such provisions under the Basel Convention.

In light of these stronger protections, the Bamako Convention is truly a regional dam treaty to prevent hazardous and other waste, including chemicals banned or severely restricted by governments around the world, from crossing the sovereign borders of the African continent and causing further harm. It provides African countries with strong protections against environmental injustice and exploitation, and gives them future opportunities to self-regulate and set stronger trade bans or controls than the Basel Convention, keeping regional needs top of mind.

For example, the Bamako Convention plays a major role in preventing plastic and electronic waste from being exported to the African continent. It is also well-positioned to prevent toxic technologies, such as the chemical recycling of plastics and waste incineration, from being moved to the African continent from the Global North.

However, while in legal force for 29 African countries, Bamako is not yet fully functional as intended.  

First, the Convention needs to be fully ratified by all 54 member states of the African Continent. To date, only 25 countries, including those regularly targeted for hazardous waste dumping, such as Nigeria, Ghana, and Kenya, have not ratified the Bamako Convention. 

Second, and of critical importance, is the mobilization of resources to allow for a steady source of funding, for adequate operationalisation, and to hold regular meetings, as any Convention must have in order for it to function. An initial step toward this was taken during the last BRS COP through a decision calling for communication and synergies with Basel, aiming for a stronger partnership.

The AMCEN-20 (African Ministerial Conference on the Environment) decision on Bamako also calls for ratification and the convening of the next COP—COP4 of the Bamako Convention — with the support of the African Union and UNEP (United Nations Environment Program).   

We must collectively call on UNEP, AMCEN, the GEF (Global Environment Fund), and all national governments of Africa to ratify the Bamako Convention if they have not, and, moreover, to explore ways to overcome these critical institutional challenges and gaps to finally achieve a functional regional convention on chemicals and waste. The most important job is finished—we have a convention. It is now our time to breathe life into it so it can fulfil its promise of protecting Africa, now and for its future generations.

The post Why Africa’s Own Treaty May Be the Key to Fixing Global Waste Trade Rules first appeared on GAIA.

On June 2, PM Press will publish Three Roads: Labor Music Ecology by Joe Uehlein, founder of the Labor Network for Sustainability. Here’s a description of the book:

“After decades organizing from within the labor establishment, Joe Uehlein realized that winning real climate and economic justice meant moving beyond the limits of traditional labor and environmentalism.

As former secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO’s Industrial Division and director of the AFL-CIO’s Center for Strategic Campaigns, Joe fought from the inside. But in 2005, he stepped away from the AFL-CIO to found the Labor Network for Sustainability, forging deep alliances between labor, climate, and environmental movements. His vision: transform the labor movement to embrace ecological responsibility—and environmentalism to uplift working-class solidarity.

But Joe’s work has never been confined to boardrooms or picket lines. With a guitar in hand, he’s shared stages with Pete Seeger and Tom Morello, turning songs into rallying cries and stories into tools for resistance.

Three Roads weaves strategy, memoir, and music into a powerful call to action. Through compelling personal narrative and frontline insight, Joe offers an urgently needed blueprint for bridging movements and pushing boundaries. This is a book for anyone who dreams of a world where working people and the planet thrive together.

Because the road to justice has to walk in more than one direction—and we need all of them.”

Here are some early comments on the book:

“The story of an extraordinary life spent making change, from one of the greatest labor organizers of our era. Anyone who has ever asked ‘what can I do’ should read this book—part memoir of compassion and grace; part manifesto for the world we need.”

—Annie Leonard, Author of The Story of Stuff, cofounder, Jane Fonda Climate PAC

“There is no one who has so seamlessly combined idealism, activism and music as Joe Uehlein has. He is a once in a generation heir to Woody Guthrie and Phil Ochs and he is also a helluva writer.”

—Saket Soni, Author of The Great Escape, Founder of Resilience Force

“Joe Uehlein is one of our great movement troubadours, organizers and good troublemakers. He brings the vision and commitment and joy with his music to add life and power to our struggles for a better world. This book tells his story, and it should inspire us all to take the action we need to take in these times.”

—Jeff Johnson, Former President, Washington State Labor Council, AFL-CIO

“Joe is an unwavering warrior-troubadour for working folks everywhere. If you can listen to his song ‘Sweet Lorain’ without choking up, then you’ll never understand working for a living. Woody Guthrie; Ella Mae Wiggins; Pete Seeger; Rev. Fred Kirkpatrick; AND their heir: JOE UEHLEIN. He is the living symbiosis of labor and environmental—and he doesn’t just sing it: he has lived it in the trenches. I have been a fan forever!”

—Heather Booth, Organizer Extraordinaire, Democratic Party Consultant

“Joe Uehlein has lived enough for not just one, but three extraordinary lives. As a labor activist, he has been a tireless advocate for union democracy and progressive politics. When he understood the perils to our earth represented by climate change, he walked away from a big AFL-CIO job to devote himself to sounding the alarm about climate to a hesitant labor movement. Through it all he has used music to convey what speeches alone cannot. In the process Joe has emerged as ‘labor’s troubadour,’ a worthy successor to Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger, keeping political folk music alive and teaching upcoming musicians the richness and appeal of this music. If you are seeking inspiration on how to live your life in a meaningful way—start with this book.”

—John Harrity, President Emeritus of the Connecticut Roundtable on Climate and Jobs

Order Three Roads: Labor Music Ecology here.

The post LNS President Uehlein Tells His Story in New Three Roads Book first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

LNS president Joe Uehlein will kick off a tour for his new book, Three Roads: Labor Music Ecology June 11 in Dearborn, MI to celebrate the release of Three Roads: Labor, Music, Ecology. The book is the powerful autobiography of longtime labor leader and Labor Network for Sustainability Founder Joe Uehlein. This special event for the national Book & Music Tour will bring together movement leaders, organizers, and music lovers for an evening of stories and songs from a lifetime spent fighting for workers, the environment, and a better world. Blending live music with reflections from the frontlines of labor and climate activism, Uehlein will share how the “three roads” of labor, music, and ecology have shaped his journey- and the movements he helped build. Come celebrate the launch and join us for a powerful evening of music and solidarity!

When: 5-8 pm June 11

Where: UAW Local 600 Union Hall, 10550 Dix Ave., Dearborn, MI

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If you are at the Labor Notes conference in Chicago you can catch Joe at the “meet the authors” event June13, 4:00-6:30 pm in the Hyatt Grand Ballroom C.

If you are near Denver, join us for Joe’s third tour event:

When: 5:30-7:30 pm June 22

Where: Event Room, Colorado People’s Center, 730 21st St, Denver, CO 80205

The post Uehlein Book-and-Concert Tour Kicks Off in Dearborn, Chicago, and Denver first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

Photo by Sydney Ghazarian

By Sydney Ghazarian, LNS Director of Strategic Campaigns

At the recent Jobs With Justice conference in Atlanta, labor and community organizers joined Union of Southern Service Workers members in a powerful march and rally alongside Waffle House workers demanding dignity on the job, safer workplaces, and a living wage. Workers and allies filled downtown streets chanting “We work, we sweat, put $25 on our check!” as they called for $25/hour wages, 24/7 security protections, and an end to mandatory meal deductions that dock workers’ pay whether they eat or not. The action connected frontline worker struggles to broader fights for economic and racial justice in the South, highlighting how mega-events like the upcoming World Cup are driving profits and tourism while service workers continue to face poverty wages and unsafe conditions. With support from unions and movement partners (including LNS), the rally showed growing momentum for cross-movement solidarity rooted in the belief that our future must include respect, safety, and economic security for all workers.

Support Union of Southern Service Workers demands by signing their petition today.

The post LNS Marches with Southern Service Workers first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

Photo source: Canva. “Activists demonstrating against global warming,” by Oneinchpunch

A growing list of labor unions – including IBEW Local 280, Iron Workers Local 29, SMART Local 16, CWA Local 7901, and the Eugene Education Association – have all endorsed the Eugene Clean Energy Fund.

The proposal, a ballot initiative for the November 2026 election, would fund clean energy, green jobs, and climate resilience by placing a 2% fee on the profits of Eugene’s billion-dollar corporations.

ECEF is a community-driven ballot initiative developed by a coalition of climate, health, housing, and racial justice organizations in Eugene. If passed, it would support four main areas of work:

• Renewable energy and energy efficiency programs: 60%
• Clean energy jobs training, apprenticeships, and contractor support: 25%
• Green infrastructure programs that result in carbon gas sequestration: 10%
• Future innovation: 5%

The Breach Collective, one of the initiators of the ballot, says:

“When trade unions endorse a climate initiative like this, it shifts the false narrative that workers have to choose between economic security and climate justice. It signals to voters that this isn’t a fringe environmental issue, but a mainstream, pro-worker, pro-community investment in Eugene’s future. For the building trades specifically, a transition to clean energy means construction: retrofitting homes, installing solar, building green infrastructure. That’s good, skilled union work.”

The labor endorsements join a growing coalition that already includes environmental organizations, racial and social justice organizations, health organizations, community groups, and elected leaders.

For more information, visit the ECEF website.

 

The post Unions Back Eugene, OR, Clean Energy Fund first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

Image Source: Canva. “Changes,” by KWaiGon

By Liz Ratzloff

Liz Razloff, Director, Center for Labor and Community Studies at the University of Michigan-Dearborn and former co-director of the Labor Network for Sustainability, recently wrote:

“Right now, a new economy is being built around us.

A new plant goes up on the edge of town. Farmland gets cleared for a battery facility. Transmission lines expand. Data centers rise, drawing as much power as entire neighborhoods. Billions of dollars move through statehouses and corporate boardrooms, deciding what gets built, where, and for whom.

But most working people are experiencing these changes differently.

A storm hits harder than it used to. A basement floods. A highway shuts down. A shift is missed. A power bill climbs. A job disappears or a new one appears without clear wages, standards, or protections. Rising heat makes work slower and more dangerous. We are living inside this transformation.

Corporate executives are making decisions that will shape entire regions for decades, often with public subsidies and limited accountability. State and local governments are competing to bring these projects in, sometimes offering tax breaks and incentives without guarantees about wages, working conditions, or long-term community benefit.

Across the country, workers are starting to push back on the idea that they should simply accept whatever this transition delivers. They are organizing not just around wages and contracts, but to shape the future of their industries. They are asking who controls investment, who sets the terms of new jobs, and what kind of economy is being built with public resources.

Auto workers are preparing for coordinated bargaining across an entire sector. Energy workers are raising questions about how new infrastructure is built and who benefits from it. Workers across industries are connecting the dots between climate change, job quality, economic power, and organizing.

Workers are not waiting to see what happens. They are stepping in to shape the future.

This means fighting to ensure that public investment creates high-quality, union jobs, not a race to the bottom. It means demanding training pathways that actually open doors, not promises that disappear once projects are approved. It means building alignment between labor and communities so that development strengthens the places people live, rather than extracting from them.”

You can read Liz’s full piece here.

To be connected with future CLCS organizing and programming around sustainable jobs and just transition, fill out this interest survey.

The post Workers Confronting the “New Economy” first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

President Donald Trump rescinded two executive orders on Friday evening that aimed to balance off-road vehicle (OHV) use on public lands. The 1972 and 1977 orders, signed by Presidents Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter, required federal agencies to minimize ecological damage, harassment of wildlife, and recreational conflicts due to OHV use on public lands. Repealing the orders prioritizes motorized recreation and resource extraction over conservation, increasing the risk of widespread environmental degradation.

The White House called the rescinded orders “outdated and burdensome” hurdles to energy and timber production. Without this guidance, fragile ecosystems—including those inside national parks—are at risk of unmitigated OHV use, which can degrade streams, displace wildlife, and significantly damage soil and vegetation. Beyond ecological damage, allowing more OHV use in the backcountry will increase dust and noise pollution and lead to conflicts between off-roaders and other user groups, like hikers and rafters.

“Rescinding guidance meant to reduce conflicts in the backcountry and protect wildlife habitat isn’t popular; that’s why Trump tried to bury it by putting this order out on a Friday evening,” Center for Western Priorities Communications Director Kate Groetzinger told the New York Times.

Wildfire experts warn of dire fire season to come

Historic drought conditions and an exceptionally light mountain snowpack have left much of the West vulnerable to wildfire this year. Simultaneously, fire experts are deeply concerned about federal management shifts and significant personnel losses within agencies like the Forest Service and Interior department. “I think this is going to be the year,” warned Timothy Ingalsbee, co-founder and executive director of Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics and Ecology. “The conditions are just ripe for some really bad outcomes.”

Quick hits USGS rolls out national map of public lands and waters

E&E News

Trump Interior Secretary Doug Burgum says says MAGA rally for America’s 250th will be ‘nonpartisan’

Yahoo News

Here’s where the Trump administration plans to allow hunting, fishing on refuge and park service lands

Outdoor Life

Park Service officials raised alarms over Trump administration’s tennis center plan

Washington Post

Forest Service delays public rollout of its proposed repeal of Roadless Rule

Lookout Eugene-Springfield | Bloomberg

How to define ‘access’? Bitterroot property swap sparks public land debate

Missoulian

Column: Make grazing great again?

High Country News

UFC White House fight and race cars take over National Park Service land

Los Angeles Times

Quote of the day

Essentially, this is a hijacking of one of America’s oldest and most well-respected conservation organizations… There are so many very good people at the foundation, with so many years doing real work on behalf of America’s national parks, it’s heartbreaking to watch.”

—Aaron Weiss, executive director of the Center for Western Priorities, Los Angeles Times

Picture This

@mypubliclands

Hey parents! Did you know your fourth-grade student is eligible for an annual pass to America’s public lands? With school almost out for the summer, it’s the perfect time to get the pass.

The Every Kid Outdoors pass allows fourth graders and their families to receive free entrance to federal public lands and waters during their fourth grade school year (September-August).

To do this, log on to everykidoutdoors.gov with your student, complete an activity and then download and print your pass voucher. Redeem the printed voucher for the pass at thousands of federal public land sites throughout the country.

 

Feature image: Radar Hill OHV Area, Oregon; BLM/Flickr

The post Trump repeals rules governing off-roading on public lands appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

According to a new report from the research organization Ember, last year solar and wind power accounted for 99 percent of the growth in world electricity supply, while generation using fossil fuels declined.

In the US, 93% of all electricity capacity added in 2026 is set to come from solar, wind and batteries. Just 7% will come from fossil fuels.

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/apr/28/trump-clean-energy-progress

The post Solar and Wind Providing 99% of New Global Electricity! first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

Image Source: Canva “Green Grass Field Under Blue Sky,” by Dan Blood. (Altered)

Unexpected breakthroughs are making energy produced from sun, wind, and water cheaper, safer, and more efficient than energy produced from fossil fuels. That’s according to a new series of commentaries by LNS senior strategic advisor and co-founder Jeremy Brecher. The series explores this “Greentech revolution,” and ask what it will mean for Americans. According to Brecher, the Greentech Revolution is already transforming the way the world produces and uses energy and it will further transform economics, politics, and society. Here are the first pieces in the series giving the background of the Greentech Revolution globally and in the US:

The Greentech Revolution: A New Strike Series

“Energy runs the world, and how energy is produced and used is undergoing a historic transformation. As UN secretary general António Guterres put it,‘We are on the cusp of a new era. Fossil fuels are running out of road. The sun is rising on a clean energy age.’”

The Greentech Revolution: Energy Production

“The use of sun, wind, and water rather than fossil fuels to produce energy is transforming economies around the world. How far has that transformation already gone and what is likely to be its future?”

The Greentech Revolution: Energy Consumption

“Radical, unanticipated developments in electrification, storage, distribution, and other technologies are transforming not only the way energy is produced but also the way it is used. Like the transformation in energy production, these advances in energy consumption are transforming economies and creating new opportunities to protect the climate and improve our lives.”

The US and the Greentech Revolution

“Greentech technologies that protect and improve the environment are revolutionizing energy production and consumption worldwide. The Greentech revolution has also been under way in the US, but it has been severely retarded by the power of the fossil fuel industry and its allies and the policies they promulgated.”

The post The Greentech Revolution first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

Sign On Letter Oppose Rollbacks to ZEV

The post Health Organizations Oppose Rollbacks to Clean Vehicles Standards appeared first on ANHE.

In 2025, the government of Saskatchewan decided to extend the life of its coal-fired power plants from 2030-2050, making it the only Canadian jurisdiction to continue its reliance on coal in the modern electricity era. In addition to the economic and...

The 100% Fish Program, created by the Iceland Ocean Cluster, is working to transform fish byproducts into new economic value chains. The program is committed to using every part of the fish, from eyes to livers to skin, to reduce food waste while helping breathe new life into coastal economies.

Fishing is the pillar of Iceland’s economy, accounting for 40 percent of export earnings, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization.

In 1983, Iceland introduced a temporary quota system to protect declining fish stocks, setting a Total Allowable Catch (TAC) for the first time. It became permanent in 1990 as an Individual Transferable Quota (ITQ) system, with TACs now issued annually based on scientific research.

While this was great news for the conservation of Iceland’s fisheries, it left fisherfolk and the industry asking “how do we do more with less?” Alexandra Leeper, CEO of the Iceland Ocean Cluster, tells Food Tank.

In 2011, Thor Sigfusson started the Iceland Ocean Cluster. His doctoral research revealed that companies in natural resource industries tended to shy away from networking, preferring to close off markets and keep others out. According to Leeper, Sigfusson wanted to highlight existing work and identify entrepreneurs, fishing businesses, and researchers who could drive further innovation once connected.

The 100% Fish Program began with high-volume, lower-value applications, such as streamlining fillet processing to preserve more meat. It championed drying fish heads for export. Eventually, the cluster began working toward low-volume, high-value innovations, like medical skin grafts, pharmaceuticals, and supplements like Dropi, a cold-pressed fish oil.

“It’s also building on heritage,” says Leeper, pointing to fish skin leather as an example of a traditional product reimagined as a modern textile.

The Iceland Ocean Cluster estimates that in Europe and North America, over 50 percent of a cod’s material weight is wasted in the production process. That waste represents not just lost material but lost economic potential.

“What we calculate today is that there’s about US$5,000 being created from a single fish when we look at all these potential opportunities,” says Leeper. For comparison, in the 1970s one Icelandic cod was worth roughly US$12 in its entirety.

Organizations around the globe reach out to the Iceland Ocean Cluster to launch their own 100% Fish Programs. There are now sister ocean clusters on five continents. Each new ecosystem offers a unique opportunity for the Icelandic team to work alongside local industries, governments, and community partners to tailor the program to their circumstances. 

“The first place we really tested this out and built an understanding of how to adapt the steps and lessons from Iceland and cod to a new, very different ecosystem was in the Great Lakes,” says Leeper.

David Naftzger is the Executive Director of Great Lakes St. Lawrence Governors & Premiers, where, with the support of the Iceland Ocean Cluster, he helped launch the 100% Great Lakes Fish Project. He says there have been significant environmental gains as some of the program’s most immediate and important wins.

Since 2022, more than 40 companies and organizations, representing over 90 percent of the region’s commercial fish production, have signed the 100% Great Lakes Fish Pledge to end landfilling and fully utilize each fish by the end of 2025.

“Environmentally, landfilling organic waste is highly emissions-intensive, generating nearly 400 kg CO₂e per ton,” Naftzger tells Food Tank. “Diverting fish waste from landfill to even a low-value alternative, such as composting, can reduce emissions by roughly 90 percent.”

For the Namibia Ocean Cluster (NOC), which brings together six of the nation’s largest vertically integrated hake fishing companies—including Hangana Seafood and Seawork Seafood—much of the work comes down to building trust. “Generally, all of Namibia’s fishing companies are fiercely competitive, and the culture is one of operating independently,” Pierre Le Roux, Chairperson of the NOC, tells Food Tank.

“In the hake sector alone, at least 30 percent of the fish is lost as waste,” says Le Roux. “In this day and age, how many industries can afford to throw away 30 percent of their product?” He sees collaboration as the key, arguing that if more companies join the NOC, the shared research and marketing costs of developing high-value products from processing waste become manageable for everyone.

These cross-sector connections are one of the program’s greatest assets going forward, Leeper believes. The Iceland Ocean Cluster is currently developing a 100% Fish Program playbook to help disseminate knowledge and build systems that benefit both the environment and the evolving needs of the global fishing economy.

“Sharing these stories,” says Leeper, “and sharing them in unlikely places and connecting with people is hugely powerful.”

Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.

Photo courtesy of Ville Oksanen, Wikimedia Commons

The post Zero Waste Seafood Program Drives Program Blue Economy Boom appeared first on Food Tank.

Canada’s newly-released National Electricity Strategy for an electrified Canadian economy highlights how buildings, among other sectors, are a nation-building opportunity for economic growth, affordability, and climate action.It’s an essential step...