ISEAL Alliance

Last year the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) published their book - Net Benefits – in which all the fisheries certified in the last ten years talked about their commitment to sustainability, the benefits they have experienced and any changes that they have implemented.

Anecdotally, it told a story of great success across the sweep of time zones, language barriers and the vast oceans and seas. From Oregon pink shrimp to Kyoto snow crab to mackerel trawled in the cold waters of the North East Atlantic, the economic, social and environmental benefits were obvious.

As Rupert Howes, MSC’s Chief Executive said “Almost 200 fisheries around the world are already engaged in the programme; either already certified or undergoing independent assessment against the MSC standard. These fisheries land close to seven million tonnes of seafood – about twelve per cent of the annual global wild harvest for direct human consumption. The aim of Net Benefits is to recognise and reward the leadership and the best practice that’s being demonstrated by certified fisheries to encourage others to do the same.”

Measuring Change

The MSC vision is one of the world’s oceans teeming with life, and seafood supplies safeguarded for this and future generations. Through its ecolabel and fishery certification programme, the MSC aims to contribute to this vision by helping to create a market for certified sustainable seafood. Fisheries are encouraged to demonstrate their sustainability against a science-based and robust global standard.

Where a fishery wishes to introduce a change it has to have a real impact and therefore that impact, that change, has to be measured, the data analysed, and the results transparently available for all to see. Because if a standard system or certification doesn’t help the people and/or environment it set out to benefit then it has been an intricate waste of time.

Measuring impact is crucial for the MSC to ensure that a market-based programme can make a real difference to the livelihoods of fisheries and to the marine environment.  The need to determine the impacts of certification is an imperative to further establish the credibility of their programme and the value of their ecolabel in the market. So this urgency was the impetus for the MSC to begin the rather long voyage of measuring the impact of certification. 

Having lived in Vancouver for many years, Maylynn Nunn enjoyed the natural if slightly foggy impact of the sea but was hauled aboard MSC’s London office last year and now is part of the monitoring and evaluation (M&E) team. “The MSC has been planning an M&E programme for some time” says Nunn, “but it’s particularly difficult to measure impact in the marine environment, and to show how fisheries meeting the MSC standard led to these changes. Now we are building the foundations for a programme to properly assess the actual impact certification is making on the world.” 

Nunn and team have developed a working group drawn from different departments across the organisation. Together they will review how the MSC intends to measure the impact certification makes, and what the world would look like if their programme is successful.

For starters, what indicators can be used to show impacts? The MSC hasn’t decided yet but are listening to all its stakeholders, from to the local knowledge drawn from generations of fishermen, to data collected through scientific research, and the experience of NGOs. What makes it so difficult to define meaningful indicators is that every fishery is unique as are the positive impacts it might bring about in meeting the MSC standard. Another difficulty is that the MSC operates in a collaborative and dynamic setting with a multitude of stakeholders influencing and supporting fisheries’ management, which can make it difficult to identify which impacts are a direct result of MSC certification.

Socio-economic indicators are comparatively easy to define but because of commercial sensitivities perhaps just as hard to obtain e.g. the increased income for fishermen, the wider benefit on their community and the increased profitability for fisheries, the supply chain, and retailers.

Net Benefits found that most fisheries report some kind of economic benefits ranging from the maintenance of existing markets and more stable prices to price premiums of up to 25 per cent.

One important environmental indicator of the impact of fishing is how other species and local wildlife are affected by the activity. “Bycatch” is the name given to any species (e.g. fish or fowl), unintentionally caught in the process of fishing. Most examples of bycatch are of other types of fish or crustacean unintentionally caught but an action following the certification of the South Africa hake fishery was a study commissioned to discover how many seabirds were killed. The study found that on average, 18,000 birds were being killed annually. As a result, tori lines (streamers flown behind vessels to scare birds away from bait) were used and restrictions on offal being thrown overboard were made. The following year saw the number of birds killed reduced by 80 – 90 per cent. The government of South Africa has now made streamers mandatory for all trawling vessels in South Africa.

ISEAL and the Impacts Code

Although still in draft form, ISEAL’s finished Impacts Code will require all ISEAL members to show their contribution to positive change. As an ISEAL member, the MSC will be required to collect data from fisheries on a range of indicators which Nunn and her M&E team will then evaluate.

Though the Impacts Code is still in consultation, the MSC are anxious to begin the process of collecting data as it will be some time before they will have enough to undertake effective impact evaluation. The MSC played a major role in the Impacts Consultations because as Nunn pointed out, “our standard is so different from other ISEAL members, so we wanted to ensure impacts fisheries are making could be recognised. It was good timing to have a discussion on this topic as the Impacts Code helped to provide the MSC with a framework for our own M&E programme”.

Not only are impacts difficult to identify but can also take place just before a fishery publically enters the MSC programme. Nunn explains that the recorded impact could likely underestimate the real impact the MSC programme is having.  “Most fisheries choose to undertake a confidential (between the certifier and fishery) pre-assessment before they enter their fishery to the public full-assessment process. This means that the really significant changes some fisheries make are likely to occur before officially entering the MSC programme.”

An equally important benefit of collecting impact data is that evidence of a positive environmental and social impact, combined with a transparent and traceable supply chain will give consumers assurance that their purchase is recognising and rewarding best practice, from a sustainable source, and has minimal impact on the environment.

About the MSC

The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC, www.msc.org) is an international non-profit organisation set up to promote solutions to the problem of overfishing. The MSC runs the only certification and ecolabelling programme for wild-capture fisheries consistent with the ISEAL Code of Good Practice for Setting Social and Environmental Standards and the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation guidelines for fisheries certification. In total, close to 200 fisheries are engaged in the MSC programme with 72 certified and more than 120 under full assessment. Worldwide, more than 4800 seafood products, which can be traced back to the certified sustainable fisheries, bear the blue MSC ecolabel.