Photo via AFN
Photo via Ocean Rainforest

Olavur Gregersen

Managing Director

Ocean Rainforest

POSITION

Managing Director

COMPANY

Ocean Rainforest

COUNTRY

Faroe Islands, Denmark

SCENE

Environment

SOCIAL

LinkedIn

Twitter

What makes Olavur Gregersen a Global Shaker?

Olavur Gregersen is the Co-Founder and Managing Director of Ocean Rainforest, one of the largest seaweed cultivation companies in Europe.

The young blue growth company located in the Faroe Islands and produces a variety of Nordic seaweed products, mostly for food and cosmetic producers, as well as take part in research projects with a number of different partners.

Gregersen’s team are currently trying to master two tough tasks that still blight the prospect of sustainably farming seaweed: one, devising offshore cultivation systems that won’t get swept away by storms; two, designing harvest and processing facilities that are less labour-intensive.

In August 2020 it was announced that Ocean Rainforest had secured $1.5 million in funding to further these twin aims at a larger scale. The round is led by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), which has invested $850,000. The rest comes from a mix of existing Faroese backers and board members, including Gregersen himself.

Olavur is also the Dissemination and Exploitation Manager of the European H2020 BioBased Industry project “Macro Cascade”, and the Technical Director of the US ARPA-E funded project “MacroSystems”. He has been the coordinator of the Nordic Innovation project MacroValue; and the NORA project MacroBiotech and TaraTekstil.

Olavur is frequently invited as a speaker at international conferences on seaweed cultivation and growth in the blue bioeconomy. He is a member of the Nordic Bioeconomy Panel and a member of the European Blue Bioeconomy Forum Steering Group working for DG Mare in EU.

Tags: algae, Blue Economy, Oceans, seaweed, sustainability, Sustainable Agriculture

Last updated: September 9, 2020