Fishing is more than a past time or a profession to Bren Smith—it's the path to reshaping everyday food while rescuing the environment. A pioneer in restorative ocean farming, Bren works to bring seaweed and shellfish into the mainstream through his nonprofit GreenWave, training marine farmers in advanced ocean crop techniques. Growing seafood—such as mussels, oysters, and kelp—in underwater columns can absorb carbon, act as storm surge protection, and restore water quality, all while providing sustainable sources for both protein-rich food and long-term employment.

Bren is candid about the origins for his passion:

At the height of industrialized fishing, we were tearing up entire ecosystems with our trawlers, chasing fewer and fewer fish, further and further out to sea. It was completely unsustainable. I was out in the Bering Sea when the cod stocks crashed, with thirty thousand people thrown out of work overnight. Canneries shuttered. It taught me that you can build up an economy and a culture over hundreds of years, and if you don't protect the resources, an ecosystem collapse can wipe out everything. Overfishing, along with climate change, are not environmental issues to those that live off the ocean, they're economic issues. There's no food, and no jobs, to be had on a dead planet.

Born and raised on the island of Newfoundland in Atlantic Canada, Bren left high school early to work on fishing boats, from the Grand Banks to the Bering Sea. Disheartened by shortcomings and setbacks in commercial fishing ventures, he launched his inventive production concept with Thimble Island Ocean Farm on 20 acres in Long Island Sound, originating the term 3D ocean farming.

Buoyed by accolades including the Buckminster Fuller Challenge for ecological design, the Ashoka social entrepreneur fellowship, and TIME magazine's Best Inventions of 2017, Bren formed GreenWave to replicate and scale his model harvesting seaweed and shellfish. With its mission to catalyze regenerative ocean farming across small- and medium-scale businesses, the nonprofit supports multiple points throughout the greater food supply chain to yield important economic and climate impacts.

Featured in the New York Times, National Geographic, the Atlantic, and on the HBO documentary “Ice on Fire” as well as culinary icon Ruth Reichl's film “Food and Country,” Bren offers keen thinking across multiple topics for today. His broad following springs from his everyman personality as well as his smart, visionary insights into multiple issues as well as solutions. His debut book, Eat Like A Fish, presents Bren's bold vision for transforming current farming models, and gained attention from various food and environmental trailblazers while winning the 2020 James Beard Book award for writing.