Creating resilience in the seafood sector: infrastructuring for transition to a circular economy

The gap between concept and practical application in the seafood industry

?Actors in and around the seafood industry recognise and acknowledge the need to transition to a circular economy [1] . However, there is currently a chasm between academic debate and application of ideas to practices throughout the value chain [2] .

Known factors believed to influence this gap include disagreement over circular economy definitions [3] , general absence of circular economy literature specifically related to the seafood industry [4] , lack of clarity over how to apply generalised models and guidelines, and absence of incentive to shift away from dominant profit-making models [1], [5] . Therefore, understandings and applications of the circular economy remain vague, aspirational, niche and locked into fringe policies like corporate social responsibility rather than central defining business activity[6] . Subsequently, consumer interest and awareness remain low [2]. This is particularly important for retailers who are seen as key influencers of consumer behaviour [1]. That said, new, progressive policy, such as the 2021 single-use plastics ban in the EU and policy to return discards to the sea are slowly taking effect [7] , [8] .

Technical solutions are also transforming practices in the seafood industry including life cycle assessments [9] , [10] , value-adding [3], [11] , and creating novel food packing from sea-by products [9], [8]. Therefore, overarching knowledge infrastructures need to be created that enable seafood industry?actors to view their own practices and how they effect and are affected within the nexus of overlapping and changing practices, inclusive of those people buying and eating the food [8].

Across disciplines, the call for knowledge sharing and a trans-disciplinary approach between actors in and around the sector, in infrastructring activity has long since been called on as key to transformation and building resilience [8], [10], [12] , [13] .

What could it mean for seafood industry actors to participate in knowledge infrastructuring activity?

Rather than stymying the seafood industry with the realities of adopting generalised, conceptual models for circular economy transition, infrastructuring enables industry actors to iterate towards systemic change through adoption of smaller scale artefacts, products or opportunities [14] . Sharing knowledge is believed to support stakeholders to build trust through transparent knowledge sharing infrastructures to change mindsets and generate capacity and feasibility for change [14], [15] . As a pro-social approach, it is vital that publics buying and eating fish are integrated into a knowledge sharing infrastructure to: shape the design of new products, address anxieties around preparing and eating fish and seafood, and generate public investment in novel practices [14], [15], [16] , [17] , [18] . ?

Informed by Elizabeth’s Shove’s thesis [19] on social practices, what we eat, when we eat, how we eat, how we prepare food are as Shove et al say ‘partly constituted by, and away embedded in material arrangements’. By investigating them, we have a way of seeing, analysing and reconfiguring the infrastructures??intersecting and shaping those practices, often many at a time, making such an approach especially pertinent in the realm of sustainability [20] .

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References

[1] Jones, P. and Comfort, D., 2018. The Circular Economy and the Leading European Retailers: A Research Note. European Journal of Sustainable Development Research, 2(2), pp.1-8.

[2] Kirchherr, J., Piscicelli, L., Bour, R., Kostense-Smit, E., Muller, J., Huibrechtse-Truijens, A. and Hekkert, M., 2018. Barriers to the circular economy: evidence from the European Union (EU). Ecological Economics, 150, pp.264-272.

[3] McCarthy, B., Kapetanaki, A.B. and Wang, P., 2019. Circular agri-food approaches: will consumers buy novel products made from vegetable waste?. Rural Society, 28(2), pp.91-107.

[4] Sch?ggl, J.P., Stumpf, L. and Baumgartner, R.J., 2020. The narrative of sustainability and circular economy-A longitudinal review of two decades of research. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 163, p.105073

[5] Jones, P., Comfort, D. and Hillier, D. (2011) ‘Sustainability in the European Shop Window’,European Retail Research, Vol. 26, No. 1, pp. 1-19

[6] Fletcher, C.A., St Clair, R. and Sharmina, M., 2021. Seafood businesses’ resilience can benefit from circular economy principles. Nature Food, 2(4), pp.228-232.

[7] Harte M, Tiller R, Kailis G, Burden M: Countering a climate of instability: the future of relative stability under the Common Fisheries Policy. ICES J Mar Sci 2019.

[8] Ruiz-Salmón, I., Margallo, M., Laso, J., Villanueva-Rey, P., Mari?o, D., Quinteiro, P., Dias, A.C., Nunes, M.L., Marques, A., Feijoo, G. and Moreira, M.T., 2020. Addressing challenges and opportunities of the European seafood sector under a circular economy framework. Current Opinion in Environmental Science & Health, 13, pp.101-106.

[9] Guillard, V., Gaucel, S., Fornaciari, C., Angellier-Coussy, H., Buche, P. and Gontard, N., 2018. The next generation of sustainable food packaging to preserve our environment in a circular economy context. Frontiers in nutrition, 5, p.121.

[10] de la Caba, K., Guerrero, P., Trung, T.S., Cruz-Romero, M., Kerry, J.P., Fluhr, J., Maurer, M., Kruijssen, F., Albalat, A., Bunting, S. and Burt, S., 2019. From seafood waste to active seafood packaging: An emerging opportunity of the circular economy. Journal of Cleaner Production, 208, pp.86-98.

[11] Haldén, C., Lidfeldt, M., Haxhijaj, D., Bj?rkner, M., Jiresten, E. and Johansson, S., 2019. New products from seafood side streams to stimulate a circular economy.

[12] Fraser, E., Legwegoh, A., Krishna, K.C., CoDyre, M., Dias, G., Hazen, S., Johnson, R., Martin, R., Ohberg, L., Sethuratnam, S., Sneyd, L., Smithers, J., Van Acker, R., Vansteenkiste, J., Wittman, H., Yada, R., 2016. Biotechnology or organic? Extensive or intensive? Global or local? A critical review of potential pathways to resolve the global food crisis. Trends Food Sci. Technol. 48, 78e87.

[13] Irani, Z. and Sharif, A.M., 2018. Food security across the enterprise: a puzzle, problem or mess for a circular economy?. Journal of Enterprise Information Management.

[14] Herrero, M., Thornton, P.K., Mason-D’Croz, D., Palmer, J., Benton, T.G., Bodirsky, B.L., Bogard, J.R., Hall, A., Lee, B., Nyborg, K. and Pradhan, P., 2020. Innovation can accelerate the transition towards a sustainable food system. Nature Food, 1(5), pp.266-272.

[15] Watson, M., & Meah, A. (2012). Food, waste and safety: Negotiating conflicting social anxieties into the practices of domestic provisioning. The Sociological Review, 60(S2), 102–120.

[16] Camacho-Otero, J., Boks, C. and Pettersen, I.N., 2018. Consumption in the circular economy: A literature review. Sustainability, 10(8), p.2758.

[17] Chamberlin, L., & Boks, C. (2018). Marketing approaches for a circular economy: Using design frameworks to interpret online communications. Sustainability, 10(6), 2070.

[18] Lusk, J. L., Roosen, J., & Bieberstein, A. (2014). Consumer acceptance of controversial new food technologies: Causes and roots of controversies. Annual Review of Resource Economics, 6, 381–405.

[19] Shove, E., Watson, M. and Spurling, N., 2015. Conceptualizing connections: Energy demand, infrastructures and social practices. European journal of social theory, 18(3), pp.274-287.

[20] Skene, K.R., 2021. What is the Unit of Empowerment? An Ecological Perspective. The British Journal of Social Work.