Seafood Stewardship Index
Publication October 2021
The Seafood Stewardship Index measures the world’s 30 most influential companies in the seafood industry on their contribution to the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Seafood plays a crucial role in nourishing populations and supporting livelihoods all over the world.
By controlling a significant portion of marine catch and aquaculture production as well as large parts of the seafood value chain, these companies can deliver a significant, unique and actionable contribution to the SDGs and food system transformation. Despite the global importance of seafood, fisheries and aquaculture face a number of serious social and environmental challenges. These include overfishing, antibiotic resistance, impacts on biodiversity, unethical labour practices and human rights violations worldwide. The largest companies have the opportunity now to address those issues.
Five key findings
Our second assessment shows that most companies recognise their social and environmental responsibilities, but few have turned those into action. The results indicate that, although many of the companies have taken some steps, it may not be sufficient and fast enough. For those companies that have taken steps and report progress, these are primarily focused on environmental impacts. Although we found improvements in companies’ commitment to traceability, there is lack of disclosure on how companies are currently performing in terms of improving supply chain visibility, Without clear oversight of supply chains, social and environmental progress in the seafood industry will continue to be hampered. With less than a decade left to achieve the SDG 2030 agenda, now is the time for the seafood industry to work with governments and all its stakeholders to deliver and realise its full potential.
Sustainability strategies need to be followed by concrete targets
Integrating sustainability objectives in the overall business strategy is the first step, however over half the companies are yet to translate those high-level objectives into actionable timebound targets for all issues relevant for the seafood industry. 70% of companies have sustainability objectives, yet only 27% have translated those into timebound targets. Concerningly, 30% of the companies did not disclose a sustainability strategy with seafood-relevant objectives.
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Certifications and fishery improvement projects are the main way industry addresses ecosystem impacts of fisheries, but too many fisheries remain unreached
Between certification such as the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), improvement projects and pre-competitive initiatives, many companies demonstrate being engaged in driving environmental sustainability in the fisheries sector. However, it is often unclear to what extent companies are engaged in improvement projects and thus how they are actively driving change.
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Companies must demonstrate how key aquaculture impacts are addressed
50% of the companies in the benchmark do not report on key aquaculture topics such as antibiotics use, animal welfare and the use of high-risk commodities in aquaculture feed. Companies should step up to demonstrate how these topics, either in their own operations or through their supply chain, are taken care off.
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Seafood companies fall short on addressing human and labour rights
Seafood companies are performing poorly on critical social issues. Half of the companies have no or a weak commitment to protect human rights in their operations and supply chains. Only 8 companies have an explicit policy to address on-board working and living conditions.
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Companies must step up to address illegal fishing
Our results show no progress since 2019 in the number of seafood companies that have an approach to assess Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) risks. However, we saw an increasing number of companies with serious commitments to traceability, a key tool to bar entry of IUU products to markets.
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See how the companies performed
View rankingFurther reading
30 Seafood companies
Locations
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Title: Trident Seafoods
Place: United States of America
Description: -
Title: Wales Group (Sea Value & Sea Wealth)
Place: Thailand
Description: -
Title: Yokohama Reito (Yokorei)
Place: Japan
Description: -
Title: Austevoll Seafood
Place: Norway
Description: -
Title: BioMar
Place: Denmark
Description: -
Title: Bolton Group
Place: Italy
Description: -
Title: Bright Food Group
Place: China
Description: -
Title: Cargill
Place: United States of America
Description: -
Title: Charoen Pokphand Group
Place: Thailand
Description: -
Title: Cooke
Place: Canada
Description: -
Title: Dongwon Enterprise
Place: South Korea
Description: -
Title: FCF Co., Ltd.
Place: Taiwan
Description: -
Title: High Liner Foods
Place: Canada
Description: -
Title: Kyokuyo
Place: Japan
Description: -
Title: Labeyrie Fine Foods
Place: France
Description: -
Title: Marubeni Corporation
Place: Japan
Description: -
Title: Maruha Nichiro
Place: Japan
Description: -
Title: Mitsubishi Corporation
Place: Japan
Description: -
Title: Mowi
Place: Norway
Description: -
Title: Nippon Suisan Kaisha (Nissui)
Place: Japan
Description: -
Title: Nomad Foods
Place: United Kingdom
Description: -
Title: Nueva Pescanova
Place: Spain
Description: -
Title: Nutreco
Place: Netherlands
Description: -
Title: OUG Holdings
Place: Japan
Description: -
Title: Pacific Seafood Group
Place: United States of America
Description: -
Title: Parlevliet & Van der Plas
Place: Netherlands
Description: -
Title: Red Chamber Group
Place: United States of America
Description: -
Title: Royal Greenland
Place: Greenland
Description: -
Title: SalMar
Place: Norway
Description: -
Title: Thai Union Group
Place: Thailand
Description:
Previous findings
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2019 Seafood Stewardship Index
In 2019 we published the first results of the performance of 30 global seafood companies.
See 2019 findings