29th November 2021

On November 29th, NUI Galway presented NEPTUNUS at an Interregional workshop on promoting relevant EU ecolabels within the framework of Europe. The workshop was organised by the University of Patras as part of the Interreg Europe project EXTRA-SMEs.

The workshop brought together perspectives from Greece, Finland, Poland, Italy, Romania, Lithuania and Ireland. The participants represented academic, industry, regulatory and governmental bodies and included Northern Chamber of Commerce in Szczecin (Poland), Bucharest-Ilfov Regional Development Agency (Romania), National regions development agency (Lithuania), Western Development Commission (Ireland), Lapland University of Applied Sciences (Finland), Region of Peloponnese (Greece), University of Western Macedonia (Greece), University of Western Macedonia (Greece), Hellenic Aquaculture Producers Organization Scientific Committee (Greece) and the National University of Ireland, Galway. In all the workshop brought together 25 attendees with 12 different speakers.

The participants presented an overview of the different ecolabels used by aquaculture producers in their respective regions. As part of the workshop Ronan Cooney gave an overview of the ecolabels used in Ireland and went through the national and EU level labels that are widely used by the sector (EU organic/green leaf, Naturland, Bio-Suisse, Aquaculture Stewardship Council etc). He also spoke about the efforts that Bord Iascaigh Mhara (BIM – the Irish Seafood Development Agency) was making through their Certified Quality Aquaculture label and Bord Bia’s Origin Green programmes (the worlds only national food and drink sustainability programme).

The work that NEPTUNUS was carrying out in the development of a water-energy-seafood nexus ecolabel was also presented and was well received. To learn more about the EXTRA-SMEs project, BIMs CQA scheme, Origin Green and the NEPTUNUS project – see the links below:

EXTRA-SMEs: https://www.interregeurope.eu/extra-smes/

BIM: https://bim.ie/aquaculture/sustainability-and-certification/

Origin Green: https://www.origingreen.ie/