When Bren Smith first started cultivating seaweed in the Long Island Sound, his friends “laughed him off the water.” “They said I was growing arugula at sea,” he says.

Now, after 15 years of experimentation, he’s showing the idea isn’t so stupid after all. Smith has set up “multi-species 3-D ocean farms” growing seaweed, scallops, mussels, clams, and oysters. And he’s developing a sustainable alternative for people who can’t rely on fishing any more.

Seaweed has been described as a “superfood”–and not only because the stuff is good for you when you eat it. Seaweed farms also help clean the water from pollution like carbon dioxide and nitrogen. They help with storm protection. And they provide a way for fishermen to do something other than fishing at sea: creating new forms of manmade coastal ecosystem–farms centered around seaweed.

Smith’s GreenWave project recently received a big endorsement in the shape of the $100,000 2015 Fuller Challenge Prize from the Buckminster Fuller Institute. The award celebrates the memory of a legendary American thinker, designer, and inventor, and Smith is tickled to be in the same company. “As a high school dropout, I would never have imagined that I would end up here and be honored this way,” he says. Smith dropped out of school at 14 to become a fisherman on the seas near Russia.

The Buckminster Fuller Institute said:

GreenWave’s integrated model shifts the practice of aquaculture from growing vulnerable monocultures to creating vibrant ecosystems, which produce higher yields. The infrastructure is simple: seaweed, scallops and mussels grow on floating ropes, stacked above oyster and clam cages below. From these crops ocean farmers can produce food, fertilizers, animal feeds, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, biofuels and much more.

Smith grows 30 to 60 tons of seaweed a year, some of which he sells to restaurants in New York City. For example, Brooks Headley’s Superiority Burger in the East Village makes special kelp noodles with Smith’s produce. And Google is buying up Smith’s seafood to feed to its employees, and looking at other ways to work with Smith’s ecosystem idea.