Environmental sustainability certifications for farmed seafood products rely on external parties – including civil society stakeholders – to buy into them or risk losing market support.

SeaChoice’s report, Accountability in Seafood Sustainability: Improving the legitimacy of aquaculture certifications through better transparency and stakeholder inclusivity, reviewed the extent to which the three most prominent aquaculture certifications − Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC), Best Aquaculture Practices (BAP) and GLOBALG.A.P. − are a product of and a platform for civil society stakeholder engagement.

As advocates for environmental protection and/or social responsibility, civil society stakeholders such as non-governmental organizations (NGOs), as well as local communities, can have a significant stake in certification decisions. They can provide invaluable expertise and local knowledge through their input. Importantly, civil society stakeholders can grant legitimacy to a certification, or not.  

All three aquaculture certifications claim adherence to guidelines or codes of conduct on stakeholder engagement. Yet despite these guidelines, there is growing dissatisfaction within the NGO community that these schemes are not adequately soliciting stakeholder input or addressing concerns. 

To help understand this gap, our report assesses ASC, BAP and GLOBALG.A.P.  against best practices in external accountability as informed by peer reviewed literature. For example: are civil society stakeholders included on governance boards and standard committees or consulted on farm audits in their region? Does the certification demonstrate to stakeholders how they are having an impact or how certified farms are in compliance?

We found that all three certifications have room for improvement in how and when they engage with civil society stakeholders, although this is more relevant for some than others. 

Overall, we call for:

1. GLOBALG.A.P. to establish civil society as stakeholders on standard-development committees and governance bodies. 
2. BAP and GLOBALG.A.P. to establish processes that will ensure civil society stakeholders are consulted during audits and publish audit reports. 
3. ASC, BAP and GLOBALG.A.P. to strengthen stakeholder consultation on all relevant standard changes and auditing guidelines, and ensure responses are provided to stakeholders and published. 
4. BAP and GLOBALG.A.P. to establish a monitoring and evaluation program.
5. ASC, BAP and GLOBALG.A.P. to strengthen dispute-settlement processes by adopting independent third-party mechanisms. 

Each certification’s summary of findings, including scheme-specific recommendations and their response (if provided), and the corresponding scoring assessment can be found below. 

Aquaculture Stewardship Council

• Summary of findings and recommendations
• ASC Response
• Scoring assessment

Best Aquaculture Practices

• Summary of findings and recommendations
• BAP Response
• Scoring assessment

GLOBALG.A.P. 

• Summary of findings and recommendations
• No response provided
• Scoring assessment