COOL BLUE · COmmunity Ocean farms and Local Business cLUstErs

Coastal and terrestrial fisheries communities in Europe, often economically marginalised, are likely to face severe impacts as climate change becomes more acute. Although progress on climate mitigation and adaptation from national governments remains slow, local development actions can also address these impacts from the bottom up. Transformation to a post-carbon society undoubtedly requires additional, targeted support and extensive educational activities at the local level. The primary objective of COOL BLUE is to create frameworks for communities to self-organise and rediscover healthy, low-impact seafood. This healthy, beautiful, tasty food simultaneously revitalises ecosystems while bringing communities closer together, creating resilient, self-sufficient and self-sustaining socioecological systems which can withstand emerging global threats such as climate and demographic change. The COOL BLUE project will create a Northern European network of community-led initiatives in the Baltic and North Sea basins. This network will facilitate closer collaboration between regions, combining efforts across parallel projects and initiatives (e.g. PREP4BLUE, BlueMissionBANOS), while accelerating the development of commercially self-sustaining, low-impact, inclusive ocean farming systems in line with the Mission Work Programme to contribute to the recovery of our ocean and waters by 2030.