London – The On The Hook campaign has published the findings of its yearlong external review of the Marine Stewardship Council’s (MSC) Standard and operations. The report presents a wide range of concerns from a varied group of stakeholders on issues including MSC’s certification of harmful fishing practices, its unsatisfactory progress on key environmental issues and its inaccessibility to many, particularly small-scale sustainable fisheries. It concludes with a call for urgent reform and a recommended roadmap for MSC to improve its practices.
The MSC currently certifies more than 530 fisheries representing 15% of global wild marine catch. As the ecolabelling programme’s reach has expanded, it has attracted growing concerns over its credibility, as evidenced by the launch of the On The Hook campaign and by several formal objections to MSC certifications. The MSC currently also faces criticism in a number of ongoing legal cases. Class actions have been filed against Bumble Bee Foods and Conagra Brands in the US states of California and Illinois over their seafood sustainability claims, with reference to the role of the MSC label.
Charles Redfern, founder of Fish4Ever and On The Hook campaign member said: “A key concern is that MSC is positioned as the height of sustainability but, in reality, the MSC system is lax and sets a fairly low bar for sustainability. What this means is that while some bad fisheries are improved by the MSC, the best examples of sustainability that are both socially AND ecologically responsible are effectively barred from the market. This happens because the MSC has completely dominated the narrative and does not allow space for alternatives to flourish, and because brands and retailers set policies which demand compliance and obeisance to a degree that is very worrying. The upshot is sea sustainability has been largely greenwashed.”
On The Hook launched its external review of the MSC in April 2022. The group had previously called on the MSC to initiate their own holistic independent review of their certification and operations but launched its own initiative when the MSC declined to do so.
Charles Clover, Co-founder of Blue Marine Foundation and On The Hook member said: “The MSC’s ecolabelling scheme could and should be a force for good. However, its bar for certification is set far too low for it to drive sustainability improvements or for it to reliably indicate sustainability to seafood buyers and consumers. The MSC’s own review processes are not only far too slow but also focus only on the Fisheries Standard itself. We believed that the only way to tackle the issue was through a holistic root-and-branch review.”
The report published by On The Hook today marks the completion of the group’s external review of the MSC and draws conclusions based on a public online consultation which ran from April – July 2022 and four expert roundtables conducted in November 2022.
The consultation received 69 responses from NGO, government, academic, industry, retail and consumer stakeholders across 14 countries. 77% of consultation respondents felt that the MSC’s use of the term ‘sustainable’ was not appropriate and not in line with market and consumer expectations.
The four expert roundtable discussions delved deeper into issues raised through the consultation. These conservations included representatives from key stakeholder organisations and were facilitated and the report written by MarFishEco Fisheries Consultants Ltd.
The report summarises inputs from the consultation and roundtables and sets out a series of urgent, medium and long-term improvements required from the MSC (see full list in Notes to Editor).
The report calls for the MSC to urgently:
- Halt certification of fisheries targeting unrecovered stocks, until stocks are fully recovered.
- Remove certification from fisheries that demonstrate any significant level of threat to Endangered Threatened and Protected species.
- Remove financial conflicts of interest from the certification process.
- Remove barriers to stakeholder feedback and access to the objections process.
- Prohibit drifting Fish Aggregating Devices (dFADs) from certified fisheries.
- Prohibit dredging and trawling in biodiversity and carbon-sensitive areas.
It also calls for the MSC to adopt medium-term improvements, such as:
- Undertaking an objective, external review of its business model.
- Requiring that the final decision to certify a fishery be taken by a third-party entity not the certification body.
- Broadening the diversity of MSC’s Board, Technical Advisory Board and Stakeholder Advisory Council.
- Preventing fisheries being certified with vessels registered under a ‘flag of convenience’.
- Increasing requirements for vessel monitoring.
- Requiring fisheries to meet conditions of certification and to stop receiving harmful subsidies within one certification cycle.
- Enforcing reporting on certified fisheries’ greenhouse gas emissions.
Finally, it calls for long-term improvements including that:
- The MSC require all crew to have a legally binding contract written in their native language which they can access.
- Climate change considerations should be included in the Standard.
Linda Wood, Aquaculture and Fisheries Manager at M&S said: “We recognise the MSC as a useful tool in guiding our sourcing decisions. Nonetheless, it is currently not holistic enough to allow us to depend on MSC certification alone to guarantee sustainability. Our customers expect that an ecolabel considers the impacts on nature, people and climate as well as the fishery itself. This is why at M&S we take a seascape approach through our Forever Fish Sourcing Policy which ensures we consider all elements of a fishery prior to deeming it responsible. I hope that MSC acknowledges the constructive recommendations made by this report and builds these into its Standard so that the ecolabel can provide an even stronger guarantee for retailers and consumers.”
Annie Tourette, Head of Advocacy at Blue Ventures said: “The MSC has a critical role to play in driving sustainability in global seafood markets. Yet achieving its potential means developing a meaningful value proposition for small scale fisheries in the Global South. These fisheries represent the overwhelming majority of fishers, yet account for a vanishingly small proportion of certified fisheries by volume. Moving beyond its longstanding emphasis on northern, industrial fisheries, will necessitate brave steps by the charity to reckon with complex and often uncomfortable issues in global seafood supply chains, including around subsidies, the ethics of distant water and reduction fisheries in food insecure countries, and the rights of small-scale fishers.” Alex Hofford of Shark Guardian said: “Ecolabels and other market-based schemes are a vital tool for driving corporate action – but only if they set the bar high enough to drive real change. On The Hook’s aim has always been, and remains, MSC reform, not failure. That is why we have set out today a clear roadmap for MSC improvement. Adopting these recommendations would finally set the bar for MSC certification at a level which truly held fisheries to account and delivered thriving fish populations and a healthy marine environment.”
