Fishy Finances (GSFER et al.)
This report contains an executive summary.
Executive summary
This report identifies industrial salmon farming's biggest financial backers and exposes the deeply troubling role global financiers are playing in creating a food production system – salmon farming – that is harming people's food security, health and livelihoods, as well as extracting a huge toll on the environment.
The global aquaculture industry has experienced significant growth in recent decades; in 2022 the UN reported that the world now eats more fish from farms than is caught wild from the ocean. Industrial salmon farming, the most profitable aquaculture sector, has mirrored this growth trajectory.
However, a substantial body of evidence, including people's direct lived experiences, reveals the massive damage that salmon farming is causing to food security, natural habitats and livelihoods. We also know that salmon farming is negatively impacting wild salmon populations, already under threat from the climate crisis and poor water quality. In 2023 the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) classified global wild Atlantic salmon populations as 'near threatened' and reclassified UK populations as 'endangered'.
As a result, resistance to salmon farming is intensifying around the world, driving restrictions and bans in several countries, and forcing companies to reconsider their expansion plans.
Despite this growing opposition, massive financial backing from multinational banks and asset managers, state pension funds and governments continues to flood into salmon farming, fuelling the consolidation and rapid expansion of an industry that urgently needs to be rolled back. European — primarily Norwegian — corporations dominate the sector, with the largest now operating across several continents.
This report argues that by supporting this extractive industry, financial institutions are complicit in propping up a multibillion-dollar global operation which places shareholder profits over the food security of millions of people and the protection of the natural world.
Despite extraordinary future growth projections, the global salmon farming industry will hit ecological limits due to its highly extractive nature. The climate crisis will only amplify these challenges. Meanwhile, as the global resistance to salmon farming gathers momentum, further restrictions and bans on salmon farming activity will inevitably follow.
The conclusion is clear: it's time for global financiers to turn off the taps and stop financing salmon farming.
Key findings
- Our analysis shows that between January 2015-November 2024, international financiers channelled tens of billions of dollars into leading salmon farming companies in the form of investments or credit.
- The top 5 creditors were: Nordea (US
4.3 billion), Danske Bank (US$2.6 billion), Rabobank (US$1.8 billion) and ABN Amro (US$1.3 billion). - The top 5 investors as of November 2024 were: Government Pension Fund Norway (US$1.7 billion), BlackRock (US$0.8 billion), Storebrand (US$0.6 billion), Vanguard (US$0.6 billion) and Nordea (US$0.5 billion)
- Three companies, Mowi, SalMar and Bakkafrost, were the biggest recipients of both investment and credit.
- Our data identified that between January 2015 and November 2024, financial institutions provided US$18.8 billion in credit to the salmon farming companies owned by Mowi (including Mowi subsidiary Arctic Fish), Kverva (principally SalMar alongside Salmonor, Arnarlax and Icelandic Salmon), Bakkafrost (including Scottish Salmon Company), Cooke (Cooke Aquaculture), Grieg Maturitas (Grieg Seafood) and Laco (Lerøy Seafood Group).
- As of November 2024, nearly US$12 billion in investment financing (US$10.9 billion in shareholdings and US$0.7 billion in bondholdings) were held by financial institutions in some of the world's biggest industrial salmon farming companies.
- Salmon farming is also attracting investment from 'sustainable banks' including Triodos, which had US$16 million invested in Bakkafrost as of November 2024. The Norwegian pension fund ranked as the largest investor at US$1.7 billion — more than the value of Scotland's entire salmon farming industry.ª
ª The Scottish salmon farming industry is valued at £1.2 billion annually (https://fishfocus.co.uk/scotlands-1-billion-plus-salmon-industry-nearing-record-year/). This is equivalent to US$ 1.5 billion.