New tool for measuring seafood sustainability

A new data tool for measuring the sustainability of seafood - both produced by aquaculture and capture fisheries - is now online and available for public use.

The Sustainable Seafood Data Tool is designed to offer users a clearer picture of environmental and social performance for global seafood production, along with a more detailed look at eight priority seafood sectors.

The tool has been developed by the Seafood Certification & Ratings Collaboration, a collective group of five NGOs —The Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch Program, Sustainable Fisheries Partnership (SFP), the Aquaculture Stewardship Council, the Marine Stewardship Council, and Fair Trade USA. It includes sustainability-related data from all five NGOs.

Information available through the tool includes rating and certification status where applicable, whether a fishery or seafood farm is improving through a targeted project, and whether or not sustainability improvements are needed in a specific fishery or seafood farm. Users can filter the data by wild or farmed, region or country.

"SFP is working to ensure that by 2020 at least 75 percent of global production in key seafood sectors is sustainable or moving toward sustainability,” said Braddock Spear, SFP systems division director. “The collaboration is critical for this goal, because it harmonizes improvement advice for specific fisheries and aquaculture sources and aligns efforts to engage the industry from key and emerging markets in driving improvements."