North Sea Futures

North Sea Futures was founded in 2017 by Anne-Mette Jørgensen (Director) and Michael Brinch-Pedersen as an independent, not-for-profit company and network organisation.

We envisioned a future resilient North Sea, based on more intelligent design and management of offshore structures and smarter funding mechanisms for ecosystem restoration and sustainable use of its resources.

We wanted to contribute to the realization of this vision by

• Stimulating and contributing to a well-informed debate on the potential nature and environmental benefits that could be achieved by taking a more flexible approach to the management, reuse and decommissioning of offshore structures;
• Inspiring innovation in the offshore energy sector that helps to make the best possible use of natural resources in line with the principles of a circular economy and maximizes ecosystem services provided by offshore structures;
• Developing and demonstrating a next best practise in decommissioning (and general management) of offshore energy installations that maximizes ecosystem and wider societal benefits;
• Establishing an independent fund or other organisational structure to ensure that a more flexible approach to decommissioning of offshore structures would generate maximum benefits for the environment and society in general.

North Sea Futures received funding from the Velux Foundations and performed a range of activities in 2017 and 2018.

In 2017

• We commissioned NIRAS to write a report examining current practises and future potentials for A Circular Economy and Ecosystem Service approach to offshore wind power installations.
• We organized an International Science – Green NGO Dialogue Meeting on Management and Decommissioning of Offshore Installations with the title “Blue Growth and Ecosystem Resilience in the North Sea: Sustainability Challenges and Opportunities”. As preparation for the dialogue meeting, we published a Discussion paper and Background briefs on Blue Growth and the Energy Transition: Unprecedented Industrialisation of the North Sea, Technical Decommissioning options for offshore installations and the Current Regulatory Framework.
• The dialogue meeting led to the publication of the North Sea Futures Manifest, providing a heads-up for decision makers, scientists and civil society organisations to (re-)consider and discuss how to achieve the most environmentally beneficial results from future offshore installation and decommissioning activities. The manifest presented 10 Principles for making the North Sea thrive as an ecosystem during transition from fossil to renewable energy production.
• Based on literature and previous work, Anne-Mette Jørgensen wrote a status report on the Environmental Impacts of the Decommissioning of Offshore Installations in the North Sea. This reports provides an overview of what we know and don’t know about the environmental impacts of decommissioning of offshore installations in the North Sea, dealing with oil and gas installations as well as wind farms.

In 2018, the work of North Sea Futures focused on communicating our learnings and influencing the political debate within the EU (during the Danish chairing) and OSPAR.