SeafoodSource is closely following the sustainable seafood movement by compiling a regular round-up of sector updates about sustainability initiatives and certifications.
- A Greenpeace International report has called out regional fisheries management organizations (RFMOs) for failing to properly manage global fishing effort, resulting in 35.4 percent of the world’s assessed fish stocks now being severely overfished, according to the FAO.
RFMOs have not delivered on their mandate to preserve marine biodiversity, resulting in “the decimation of sensitive species and the destruction of vulnerable marine ecosystems,” according to Greenpeace in its “Untangled - How the Global Ocean Treaty Can Help Repair High Seas Mismanagement” report.
“Science and the safeguarding of thriving fish populations for all future generations should be the compass guiding governments’ choices. Instead, RFMOs have overseen industrial plundering of the oceans at a scale beyond anything seen before in human history,” Greenpeace Protect the Oceans Project Leader Laura Meller said. “This broken system has prioritized extraction for a few wealthy countries over protection for us all. Governments must prize biodiversity protection over extraction and ratify the Global Ocean Treaty so, in the future, protection and justice are at the heart of ocean governance.”
Greenpeace called on the world’s governments to ratify the Global Ocean Treaty so it enters into force by the United Nations Ocean Conference in June 2025. The nonprofit said the treaty will help remedy the “broken status quo” represented by the current RFMO system, which is generally stymied by its consensus decision-making structure “that allows single countries to block vital measures, corporate influence to create substantial conflicts of interests, and RFMOs’ continued failure to follow scientific advice.”
Meller said the report also “presents cases of weaponizing doubt in the scientific process, often resulting in decisions that allow continued overexploitation and hinder measures to protect the environment.”
“Behind closed doors, corporate capture of RFMOs has left them powerless and counterproductive,” Meller said. “On their watch, the oceans have been plunged deep into crisis, and the broken status quo must change before it’s too late. The Global Ocean Treaty provides hope. If it’s ratified in 2025, it will enable us to protect 30 percent of the oceans by 2030, giving marine life a chance to recover from decades of mismanagement by RFMOs.”
Accountability.Fish Global Director Ryan Orgera said his organization supported the report and its conclusions. Accountability.Fish is a global initiative committed to increasing openness and accountability in international fisheries decision-making.
“What we have is a system that can be easily sabotaged by a small number of bad actors – either a country beholden to its industrial fishers or by an RFMO that purposely closes key proceedings to observers and the media,” Orgera said. “This isn’t simply an issue for environmentalists; it’s a system that also puts consumers, retailers, marketers, and labor at a huge disadvantage, and it needs to be reformed now.”
- Feed company Skretting has released its 2023 Impact Report, which found its scope 1 and 2 (energy, water, and waste) emissions increased by 4.1 percent between 2018 and 2023 but also highlighted an 11.1 percent decrease in its Scope 3 emissions (feed raw materials), resulting in a 10.4 percent total carbon footprint reduction.
“The report shows not only our global absolute greenhouse gas emissions but also the main drivers per business unit and within our main species,” Skretting CEO Bastiaan van Tilburg said in a press release. “We are continuously increasing our knowledge and will keep reducing our impact through efficiency improvements, better data quality, changes in raw material compositions, and sourcing.”
Van Tilburg said Skretting had a setback in its goal of sourcing 100 percent of its marine ingredients from certified origins or from a fishery improvement project by 2025. In 2023, lower fishmeal production from Peru, other fisheries losing their certification, and fewer fisheries entering into FIPs, as well as record-high fish oil prices and higher aquafeed prices, resulted in 77 percent of Skretting’s marine ingredients qualifying for its metric, down from 84 percent in 2022.
“Skretting recognizes that this step backward needs to be the exception to the rule but that it needs the industry to move on the same direction to reach its ambitious targets,” van Tilburg said. “If we look at the volume of uncertified ingredients in 2023 alone, paying the premium to replace them with certified would have cost our global operations around EUR 70 million [USD 76 million] more, and that’s something that we can’t absorb on our own. We need the industry to come together and share the responsibility to create a positive environmental and social impact.”
Skretting also publicized it received 10 reports through Speak Up, its whistleblower and grievance mechanism. In response, it said it has partnered with sustainability rating platform EcoVadis to identify areas for improvement in its suppliers’ sustainability initiatives – particularly those operating in regions or industries where sustainability risks are more prevalent.
Additionally, Skretting has partnered with food waste startup Goterra to source black soldier fly larvae from its Tasmania, Australia-based facility for use in aquafeed.
Goterra CEO and Founder Olympia Yarger said in a press release the partnership with Skretting Australia will drive the upscaling of technologies to mitigate food waste impacts while contributing to the sustainable production of Australian farmed seafood.
“Collaborating with our offtake customers like Skretting contributes toward their ambitious ESG targets while also closing the loop of this circular value chain,” she said. “These are the partnerships that stabilize the foundation of a circular economy. Global business with regional inputs ensure stability of production, sustainability of inputs, and that Australian agriculture continues to deliver high-quality produce with feed produced right here in Australia.”
Goterra raised AUD 10 million (USD 6.8 million, EUR 6.2 million) after raising AUD 8 million (USD 5.4 million, EUR 5 million) in 2020 and is considering a Series B funding round, according to Startup Daily.
- A report published in Reviews in Fisheries Science and Aquaculture has proposed a shared metric system that can be applied to all feed ingredients to simplify estimates regarding their environmental sustainability.
The report, “The Evolution of Sustainability Metrics for the Marine Ingredient Sector: Moving Towards Holistic Assessments of Aquaculture Feed,” was authored by senior staff at IFFO – The Marine Ingredients Organization, a trade group representing the fishmeal and fish oil industry. It calls life-cycle assessments “the most practical and robust option” for use as a shared metric system.
“Using this framework, it becomes easier to understand the role that marine ingredients play in the aquaculture sector: They are being used more as strategic ingredients at key points in aquaculture production cycles, with a trend toward optimizing their nutritional contributions and ensuring we maximize the efficiency of their use. This helps us to retain more of those valuable nutrients within our food chain,” IFFO Technical Director Brett Glencross, the lead author of the paper, said in a press release.
Numerous systems are currently in place to measure the sustainability of feed ingredients, including FIFO (fish-in : fish-out), eFIFO (economic fish-in : fish-out), FFDR (forage fish dependency ratio), and FCR (feed-conversion ratio). But, none of those metrics provide a true reflection of the feed sector’s environmental sustainability by failing to consider the differences between a well-managed or poorly managed fishery, according to the paper.
A life-cycle assessment of Peru’s anchoveta fishery – the world’s largest fishery and biggest contributor to global fishmeal and fish oil production globally – previously found it is probably one of the lowest-carbon animal protein systems in the world.
- The International Seafood Sustainability Foundation (ISSF) has released its 2023 annual report.
ISSF is committed to achieving sustainable tuna fisheries through work with industry partners and advocacy appeals directed at RFMOs. In its report, “Navigating Toward Sustainable Tuna Fisheries,” ISSF found its collaboration with tuna vessels, fishers, and other partners in the seafood industry has improved global tuna stock health.
“Skilled, conscientious fishers in all oceans take proactive steps every day to protect marine life – avoiding overfishing, reducing bycatch, and providing data for scientific and compliance reporting – while harvesting their catch. As one indicator of the strides they have made, more than 65 tuna fisheries are certified by the Marine Stewardship Council as meeting its criteria,” ISSF President Susan Jackson said in a press release. “We are grateful to ISSF’s many vessel partners in sustainable fishing, and we celebrate our multi-faceted collaborations with fishers at sea and on shore.”
ISSF listed 2023 revenue of USD 5.4 million (EUR 5 million), including USD 4 million (EUR 3.7 million) from participating companies, USD 1.1 million (EUR 1 million) in grants and other donations, and USD 5.2 million (EUR 4.8 million) in expenses.
ISSF also published its Annual Conservation Measures and ProActive Vessel Register Compliance Report on 3 July. It reported on how well 23 ISSF participating companies performed against 33 ISSF conservation measures for sustainable fishing in 2023, finding a 98.95 percent conformance rate, with 16 companies fully compliant on all measures. The report also found a 75.8 percent conformance rate for 12 ISSF measures that directly address vessel activity for boats listed on ISSF’s ProActive Vessel Register (PVR).
