Seafood companies around the globe have increasingly pledged to adopt more sustainable and responsible practices across their value chains.
Though these pledges often represent a positive step toward improving upon supply chain issues, the company-specific development of these commitments creates a challenge, as there is often very little alignment or consistency from one company to another.
This results in data and reporting that can identify company progress against its own commitments, but the lack of consistent and comparable data and targets means progress at the sector or industry level becomes difficult to assess.
To alleviate the issue, seafood industry stakeholders developed the Market Commitment Evaluation Framework.
“The framework provides harmonized guidance for measuring, assessing, and verifying industry progress against some of the most common sustainability and worker rights commitments made by retailers and the seafood industry. The goal is to enable all industry players to utilize the same metrics for tracking progress against key commitments that achieve a level of validation required to meet a third-party verification benchmark and are broadly accepted by civil society organizations,” Market Commitment Evaluation Framework Program Lead Robin Teets said.
Teets, who has a background in marketing communications and project management, developed the framework along with NGO Tuna Forum, of which he is the project lead. Auditing body MRAG Americas developed guidance for adoption and identified means of verification for each commitment.
The framework is designed for broad adoption and is applicable to all wild-caught species. One company can simply use it as a best practices guide to develop internal goals, while another company can use it as the basis for verifiable criteria for a due diligence plan or as evidence in fulfilling buyer or regulatory requirements.
As part of the sales pitch to seafood firms, the framework advertises itself as a way to reduce complexity around data collection and reporting and, in turn, reduce costs and increase adoption rates for responsible practices. Along with developing common data requirements for supply chains, the framework also reduces complexity by recognizing other platforms already in use as data sources for commitments.
“Retailers and seafood companies today are navigating a growing number of sustainability and responsible sourcing expectations across global supply chains. Efforts that advance greater consistency around metrics, verification, and reporting can help improve clarity and reduce unnecessary complexity for both industry and stakeholders,” International Seafood Sustainability Foundation Market Outreach Associate Michael Cohen said.
The framework is also designed to streamline the work of NGOs and civil society organizations and expand the number of organizations that can engage companies with third-party-developed, auditable metrics consistent with international standards. This wider diffusion of consistent data collection creates more efficient data flows across supply chains.
NGOs can then support the seafood industry through better data learning loops to identify where responsible practices are having an impact on fisheries, ocean resources, and workers and communities.
“From ISSF’s perspective, credible verification and transparent progress reporting remain fundamental elements to create strategic value such as building trust and supporting continuous improvement in tuna fisheries,” Cohen said.
According to Teets, while data collection and reporting are typically solely thought of as components of ESG work, they are also an essential input for supply chain innovation design and adoption.
For instance, when technology companies can clearly determine where traceability or electronic monitoring is being adopted and where it isn’t, they can provide meaningful products that make an impact.
“We can support more efficient data collection and operations for seafood companies. We can help seafood companies understand what the future looks like,” Teets said. “We can improve our understanding of what actions are really driving change, and maybe most importantly, the framework enables companies to credibly tell their story and build trust with their customers. Seafood has some great stories to tell, and our hope is the framework makes that easier for the entire industry. We can do all this without the industry doing more, just doing it better.”
