The greenhouse gas emissions of the most remarkable Finnish fish product chains

Abstract

This study focuses on counting the greenhouse gas emissions of the most common Finnish fish products. The selected fish species were rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss), Baltic herring (Clupea harengus membras), pikeperch (Sander lucioperca), perch (Perca fluviatilis) and vendace (Coregonus albula). Rainbow trout was farmed, and all the other fish species were captured wild fish. At the product level, this study was limited to cover fresh fillets and gutted fish (vendace). The data were collected by surveys from typical enterprises from fisheries sector, like fishermen, aquaculture and fish processing companies. The LCA methodology was used to assess the greenhouse gas emissions. Farmed rainbow trout had the highest greenhouse gas emissions with 3.7 kg CO2 eq/kg/functional unit and Baltic herring caught with fish trap had the lowest emissions with 0.7 kg CO2 eq/kg/functional unit. In average, the farmed product (rainbow trout) had higher greenhouse gas emissions than the captured species. Gillnet fishing had higher greenhouse gas emissions than the action of trawling, seine and fish traps. The main reason for the higher impact for farmed fish was feed consumption. The differences between captured fish species were caused by different distance to fishing areas and volumes of the catch. According to the results, the carbon footprint of the consumption of Finnish citizens can be lowered by using domestic captured fish.