Sam Elsom is one of the few people who can confidently say their values and their career are in lockstep.
The Sea Forest founder’s work harnessing the carbon-capturing power of seaweed over the past seven years has garnered international attention and launched him into the upper echelons of international climate advocates.
A documentary with Zac Efron, a visit from former US ambassador to Australia Caroline Kennedy, a finalist in Prince William’s Earthshot prize, GQ’s Social Force for 2024, and the 2025 Australian of the Year for Tasmania — the opportunities and accolades have come thick and fast.
Complete with a roguish manbun and presidential beard, Elsom has become a mascot for Australia’s maligned climate-defending industry.
“Our measure of success will really be through our impact,” Elsom says.
“I don’t think anyone that receives those types of awards would say that’s why they do it. We’ve got a job to do, and I hope that it makes it easier for us to fulfil that.
“On the flip side, it’s been incredibly exciting to be having meetings with Prince William in Kensington Palace, having Caroline Kennedy come down and visit us, or Zac Efron film on our farm. All these bizarre things that have happened over the time that we’ve been doing this. So I’m grateful.”
Already active in the world of sustainable fashion, Elsom launched Sea Forest in 2018 spurred by the alarming findings of a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
The long and detailed document published every five to seven years by the United Nations keeps track of the planet’s progress, or lack thereof, in addressing climate change.
It was a presentation of this report delivered by 2007 Australian of the Year Professor Tim Flannery that Elsom pins as his inspiration for starting the business.
But as a lifelong nature lover with “environmental leanings” it didn’t take too much of a push.
“Tim Flannery has been an inspiration . . . when it comes to climate change, but also to know that there are solutions. It’s actually because of Tim that I started to pursue seaweed.”
The interest in algae and its ability to sequester carbon dioxide has culminated in SeaFeed, a cattle feed additive made from abundant red seaweed cultivated at a specialised Sea Forest facility on the east coast of Tasmania.
Sea Forest claims a small dose of the additive alongside normal feed reduces the methane emissions a cow produces.
The 2024 Global Methane Budget report contributed to by CSIRO called out agriculture as a bigger contributor to global methane emissions than the fossil fuel industry.
CSIRO’s executive director for the Global Carbon Project Pep Canadell refers to it as a “short-lived” greenhouse gas. Its atmosphere-warming effects occur within 20 years, making it a “good target for fast mitigation of global warming”.
It’s been incredibly exciting to be having meetings with Prince William in Kensington Palace, having Caroline Kennedy come down and visit us, or Zac Efron film on our farm. All these bizarre things that have happened over the time that we’ve been doing this. So I’m grateful.
According to the Federal Department of Climate Change, Energy, Environment and Water, some methane-inhibiting feed has been shown to reduce cattle’s methane emissions by more than 80 per cent, under ideal conditions.
“I think we’ve moved past the fact that we can plant our way out of this with trees, for example,” Elsom says.
“We need a range of solutions.
“The work of Sea Forest to reduce median emissions in livestock with very limited or minimal behavioural change (is) really important because it means that for a farmer, for example, they’re not having to completely change practice, or stop farming cattle altogether in the face of climate change, which would be even more disruptive.”
But getting farmers to latch on to the product has not been straightforward, and that has made sales and business growth tough for Sea Forest.
“The headwinds are there because there is a cost associated with doing this and there’s no reward for farmers, who, if I’m honest, are also under quite a lot of pressure, particularly when you think about the cost of living . . . and the fact that farmers are not necessarily appreciated through the supply chain.”
The Federal Government’s recent decision to exclude seaweed feed from the Australian Carbon Credit Unit Scheme has also not helped.
Had it been included, farmers could have hypothetically marketed or sold the “saved” emissions from their operations to organisations looking to offset their environmental impacts.
The idea is that would provide a financial and environmental incentive for cattle farmers to take up the product.
That decision is a source of frustration for Elsom who, along with his team of 50, has spent years proving that SeaFeed can reduce emissions and getting the product to a commercial scale.
“On one side, we’ve made all of this incredible progress,” he says.
“But yet at the same time, many people are indifferent when it comes to climate change. It’s a lot of headwind, and that’s been probably for me the most heartbreaking part of Sea Forest.
“We’ve upheld our end of the deal, we built the solution. We’ve made it commercially viable. We’ve got it to significant commercial scale, but yet we can’t seem to get a lot of support from the Government in terms of policies that would reward farmers.”
Sea Forest has had to focus on additional revenue streams and getting the product into supply chains of large organisations with scope three emission-reduction targets to meet.
It recently signed a deal with major UK supermarket Morrisons aimed at fast-tracking production of lower carbon beef products.
Sea Forest also has a low-emissions milk product, named Eco-Milk, with Tasmania’s Ashgrove Cheese. A SeaFeed lick block for cattle was also released last year.
Elsom’s efforts come during a polarising period for climate change commitments, and are ostensibly pulling against the highly influential opposing forces of the US under the leadership of President Donald Trump, who recently withdrew from international climate treaty the Paris Agreement, and called a halt on financing emission-reduction efforts in developing countries, just weeks after returning to the Oval Office.
And in Australia, voters in the imminent 2025 Federal election are more concerned about the hip-pocket issue of cost-of-living pressures than an existential threat such as climate change.
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has opened the door for the Coalition to walk away from a target set by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in 2022 to reduce Australia’s emissions by 43 per cent by 2030.
For Elsom and the team at Sea Forest, they view their cause as one far greater than a political issue of the moment.
“I’m a father. I’ve got two kids. I care deeply about the future that they will have and their children will have,” he says.
“We’ve been told and warned that we are in a decisive decade. We’ve got five years until 2030 and the goal is to halve emissions. Now that’s a difficult task, but it’s a question (of) how do you want to be remembered in this moment?
“And I would like to be remembered as someone who gave it everything I had to try and at least contribute towards meeting that goal.”