Blue Foods
SOLUTION
Why we need Blue Foods
Blue foods encompass foods derived from aquatic animals, plants or algae that are caught or cultivated in freshwater and marine environments. Blue foods are sourced from a variety of methods, with small-scale fisheries (SSFs) and aquaculture operations together contributing to a significant portion of global production. These sectors are crucial for sustainably providing vital nutrients to 3 billion people worldwide and supporting the livelihoods of nearly 800 million. Notably, nearly half of the blue food workforce comprises women. This underscores the significant socioeconomic impact and gender dynamics within this sector.
Blue foods contribute substantially to global food systems, offering nutritional richness, cultural significance, and a lower environmental footprint compared to land-based animal products. Despite their crucial role, challenges such as overfishing and habitat destruction are pressing. According to the latest FAO reports, approximately 35% of the world’s fish stocks are now being fished at levels that are not biologically sustainable, highlighting the urgent need for action to ensure the long-term viability of these vital resources.
The 
Blue Foods solutions we are driving
We aspire to set a model that transitions from traditional seafood sources to responsibly-sourced alternatives, driven by our commitment to safeguarding ocean health through responsible consumption practices. Our approach revolves around four pivotal actions: defining a path towards sustainable seafood for the private sector, ensuring supply chain traceability, uplifting local communities, and exploring alternative blue foods.
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Defining a path towards Sustainable Seafood
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Supply chain Traceability
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Lifting up Local Communities
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Exploring alternative Blue Foods
Defining a path towards Sustainable Seafood
We work to ensure transparency and accountability throughout seafood supply chains. Fostering the implementation of a responsible seafood framework, we prioritize tracing products back to their source to confirm their legal and sustainable origins. This critical step is foundational in preventing IUU fishing products from infiltrating our supply chain and serves as a catalyst for encouraging our suppliers to adopt and maintain superior practices. By prioritizing traceability, we ensure that sustainability and responsible practices are not just ideals, but enforceable standards at every stage of our supply chain
Supply chain Traceability
We work to ensure transparency and accountability throughout seafood supply chains. Fostering the implementation of a responsible seafood framework, we prioritize tracing products back to their source to confirm their legal and sustainable origins. This critical step is foundational in preventing IUU fishing products from infiltrating our supply chain and serves as a catalyst for encouraging our suppliers to adopt and maintain superior practices. By prioritizing traceability, we ensure that sustainability and responsible practices are not just ideals, but enforceable standards at every stage of our supply chain.
Lifting Up Local Communities
We actively engage with local fisheries and stakeholders of the local seafood supply chain, recognizing and supporting those demonstrating high sustainability standards or showing potential for improvement. We work to facilitate the adoption and maintenance of sustainable practices within these communities, leveraging commercial relationships and forming partnerships with local stakeholders.
Exploring Alternative Blue Foods
In our pursuit of sustainability, we continuously explore alternative blue foods, actively seeking out and championing the cultivation and consumption of not only lesser-known aquatic species and algae but also focusing on low-impact, high-potential options. This includes prioritizing lower trophic species like small pelagic fish, embracing regenerative mariculture practices for bivalves, aquatic plants, and algae, and tapping into abundant, undervalued, and underutilized species. By doing so, we aim to alleviate pressure on traditional seafood stocks, reduce environmental footprint, and enhance global food security through more resilient and diverse marine ecosystems.
What we have achieved
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We aspire to set a model that transitions from traditional seafood sources to responsibly-sourced alternatives
We present our roadmap for the restorative and regenerative procurement of resources, the use and end use of water, energy and the products of the built environment: our hotels
Discover our resources
Discover the remarkable achievements and ongoing sustainability efforts of Iberostar Hotels & Resorts in 2023 by downloading our full 2023 Year in Review report.
This report and roadmap synthesize progress on our strategic objectives and lays out the evolution of embodying a circular economy at Iberostar Hotels & Resorts.
Iberostar Hotels & Resorts has a continued commitment to transparency. Here we present our Wave of Change 2022 Year in Review.
In 2020, Iberostar Hotels & Resorts committed to achieving carbon neutrality by 2030. We now present our roadmap for decarbonization aligned with this objective.
This roadmap establishes clear goals and key progress indicators to track success, and provides guiding actions to enhance the ecological health of coastal ecosystems.
This is our second Responsible Seafood Annual Report and it has been made publicly available to show our ongoing commitment to transparency within our seafood strategy.
Iberostar Hotels & Resorts has a continued commitment to transparency. Here we present our Wave of Change 2021 Year in Review.
As part of our commitment to transparency, we present our Wave of Change 2019 End of Year Assessment by the numbers where we highlight our achievements.
This is our first Responsible Seafood Annual Report and it has been made publicly available to show transparency within our seafood commitment.
As part of our commitment to transparency, we present our Wave of Change 2020 Year in Review. This document outlines how we performed in 2020.
What should resilient reef restoration look like for tourism? For Wave of Change, it should protect our coastlines, enhance fish biomass and maintain high levels of biodiversity.
Nature holds the most powerful solution to climate change. Learn more about our plan to offset our carbon footprint with nature-based solutions here.
We're setting a standard towards responsibly-sourced seafood while relying on gastronomic excellence to revolutionize the path towards responsible consumption.
Here we present our proposed goal of restoration for Iberostar’s Wave of Change movement where we determine that tourism is a force of good for restoration.
Get to know the latest findings of our in-house science team. We continue working towards our goal of discovering, protecting and restoring sea grasses, mangroves and coral reefs.
Our CSO and VC Gloria Fluxa, talks about the importance of businesses leading change to protect natural resources in the 2019 “The Business Case for Marine Protection and Conservation” Impact Report.
Alliances and partnerships
