Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of Culture Media for Cell-Cultured Fish Production

The growing need, for animal-derived proteins, has brought notable environmental issues in conventional fishing and aquaculture sectors. Cell-cultivation of fish cells in vitro provides a potential remedy to these problems by producing fish without requiring fish farming and fisheries. This thesis thoroughly examines the environmental impacts of the production of two serum-free media formulations used in the production of cell-cultured fish, targeting Piscine Satellite Cells (PCS) and Piscine Adipose-Derived Stem Cells (PADSCs). The main goal of this study is to evaluate and compare the environmental footprints of these media formulations using a comprehensive life cycle assessment (LCA). The research measures the impact on global warming potential, energy usage, water consumption, resource depletion, and land use. The key results show that the basal medium consisting of Dulbecco's Modified Eagle Medium (DMEM) plays a major role in the environmental impacts of the PSC medium, whereas the lipid mixture has a significant impact, on the PADSC medium. A sensitivity analysis was conducted to evaluate how the effect of substituting conventional energy sources to wind and solar power and using glucose from maize instead of glucose from the market impacts the environment. The findings show that renewable energy sources notably reduce impacts in various areas for both PSC and PADSC media types by reducing fine particulate matter formation, global warming potential, and water usage. In contrast, substituting conventional glucose with maize-derived glucose led to only slight benefits and even increased resource use. The research highlights environmental hotspots within the media production process and provides recommendations for optimizing the sustainability of cell-cultured fish production, such as using renewable energy sources and creating more sustainable media formulation with the aim of reducing the ecological footprint of cell-cultured seafood and promoting sustainable food production practices on a larger scale.