Global coalition of experts, Make Stewardship Count, concerned that long-awaited changes to fisheries eco-label won’t go far enough.

The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) is the world’s largest and most prominent seafood certification scheme, with over 400 fisheries across the globe certified under its standard. MSC states that its vision is of “the world’s oceans teeming with life”, but what role will it play to move toward this vision? Consumers, retailers and those working in the seafood industry must be able to trust the labels on seafood products. 

Due to its outsized influence on the sustainable seafood marketplace and global definitions of sustainable fishing, SeaChoice has worked for many years with MSC and others in the conservation community to keep the eco-label rigorous and to ensure fisheries getting their stamp of approval really are the best of the best.  

Unfortunately our in-depth analysis, What’s behind the label?, released in 2017, showed that MSC was no longer living up to its claims or driving best practice. After years of engaging with the assessment of each Canadian fishery that sought MSC certification and leaving frustrated with the process, our report highlighted the need for SeaChoice to instead focus on improving the MSC Certification Standard itself – the definition of sustainable fishing and the scoring by which fisheries are assessed to become an MSC certified fishery. 

We have spent years now engaging with the MSC at every opportunity to improve the Standard and finally, a revised MSC Certification Standard will be revealed on February 1st, 2022 for consultation. This consultation will be our last chance for many years to improve the MSC Standard and its definition of sustainable fishing. Once the consultation period opens, Make Stewardship Count and SeaChoice will be reaching out to all stakeholders to help them have their say. 

How did we get here? 

In 2018, SeaChoice helped found Make Stewardship Count, a coalition of over 90 organizations, experts and academics working together to push for improvements to the MSC. The coalition began by writing an open letter to the MSC with the critical improvements our combined expertise identified as imperative to build into a revised Standard.

Over the last two years of MSC’s consultations on the Standard we have brought stakeholders together to provide strong input at workshops, through submissions, and in public facing engagement. We held our own workshop to push for better processes and published a report on Transparency of stakeholder engagement & decision making in the Marine Stewardship Council. 

We organized and hosted a webinar as part of the Blue Deal Debates Webinar Series “Ocean Vision 2030: Are eco-certifications ready for the challenges?” to explore the trajectory of best practices in fisheries on topics like bycatch, gear loss and the role of the MSC in driving improvements in fisheries.

We continue to focus on getting our core critical improvements into the new MSC standard because without them, the certification risks losing its credibility with consumers and retailers as well as those truly sustainable fishery fleets that have done the hard work on the water to improve. 

Make Stewardship Count has assessed the proposed changes to the Standard that MSC released against the critical improvements and flaws identified by our global groups of experts. This assessment focused on the following questions: will the new Standard ensure that certified fisheries are not engaging in shark finning, are not endangering vulnerable and protected species, are reducing waste of marine life and improving their impacts on ecosystems?

In short, are the proposed changes going to make enough of a difference? 

Our latest scorecard, unfortunately, shows many remaining concerns, even after years of input and engagement. The new scorecards show more red (below expectations) than in previous rounds and highlight the potential for high impact fisheries to exploit loopholes in the language. Based on the few proposed changes available to analyze, it appears that MSC will continue to just certify the status quo. 

The scorecard also highlights that while the MSC did make an initial effort to increase engagement opportunities during the Standard Review, the final and critical stage of consultations has been dogged by a lack of clarity and transparency. With only weeks before the new draft Standard is to be revealed, few details or proposed changes are known to even the most active stakeholders. 

Hope remains that the draft Standard released on February 1st for consultation will address the concerns continually raised by the conservation community. Make Stewardship Count will be there to provide analysis and recommendations, and we will support other organizations, experts, retailers, and consumers to get involved in this final and critically important round of consultations. 

The decisions made by the MSC now will impact how global best practices in fisheries are defined for years to come and how much impact seafood retailers, buyers, and consumers can make on fishing practices by choosing to buy seafood with its ecolabel. 

We need MSC to raise the bar on what sustainable fishing really looks like and become a leader again for change on the water. 

Stay tuned for ways to send your message to the MSC!