Funding will support research into the potential for using seaweed as a form of carbon sequestration

Amazon is providing €1.5m in funding for a "world first" commercial-scale seaweed farm located between offshore wind turbines in the North Sea, it announced today.

The tech and online retail giant said the grant would support the construction of the 10-hectare North Sea Farm 1, which is expected to produce at least 6,000kg of fresh seaweed in its first year. The project will also incorporate 12-months' research to assess the potential for farmed seaweed to capture and store carbon.

The first-of-a-kind project will be is located below the waters surrounding a wind farm off the coast of the Netherlands and has been designed to test and improve methods of seaweed farming, while researching the potential of seaweed to sequester CO2, Amazon explained.

By building the farm in previously unused space between turbines, the project is designed to expand seaweed cultivation in the otherwise heavily used North Sea, Amazon said.

The company said that if seaweed farming covered the entire space occupied by offshore wind farms - expected to be approximately one million hectares by 2040 - it could sequester millions of tonnes of CO2 every year.

Zak Watts, director EU sustainability at Amazon, said that while seaweed could be a key tool in removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, it is currently farmed at a relatively small scale in Europe.

As such, he said he hoped the North Sea Farm 1 would help to create a replicable blueprint to scale the nascent offshore seaweed farming sector and create jobs through the farming and production of seaweed-based products.

"We're delighted to fund this project to help us reach a greater understanding of its ability to help fight climate change," he said.

A consortium led by non-profit North Sea Farmers (NSF) is set to lead the year-long research into carbon reduction through seaweed farming at the site.

Plymouth Marine Laboratory, Deltares and Silvestrum Climate Associates, seaweed extract manufacturers Algaia and marine contractor Van Oord are also set to collaborate with NSF on the venture, which is being funded through Amazon's $100m Right Now Climate Fund.

Eef Brouwers, manager of farming and technology at NSF, claimed up to 85,000 full-time jobs could be created in the European seaweed sector by re-purposing the space among North Sea wind farms for seaweed farming.

"These jobs would not only be in the farming process but also in the production and sales of seaweed-based products," he said.