Nominations for the 2019 Seafood Champion Awards, which recognize outstanding contributions to sustainable seafood and ocean conservation, are now being accepted, joint organizers Diversified Communications and SeaWeb announced on Wednesday, 28 November.
Presented for the first time in 2006, the Seafood Champion Awards look to honor individuals and organizations contributing in meaningful ways to advancing seafood sustainability in fishing, aquaculture, supply chains, retail, foodservice, conservation, science, academia, and the media.
To be considered in the 2019 selection process for the awards, nominations must be turned in by 11:59 p.m. EST on 15 January, 2019. Winners were will recognized at the 15th edition of the SeaWeb Seafood Summit, to be held in Bangkok, Thailand from 10 to 14 June, 2019.
The awards are broken out into four categories, including:
- Seafood Champion Award for Leadership: An individual or entity that displays leadership by organizing and convening seafood stakeholders to improve the sustainability of seafood and ocean health.
- Seafood Champion Award for Innovation: An individual or entity that identifies and applies creative new solutions to address: ecological challenges; existing market needs; barriers to sustainability.
- Seafood Champion Award for Vision: An individual or entity that establishes a clear and compelling vision of the future that inspires positive change for sustainable seafood in technology, policy, products or markets, or conservation tools.
- Seafood Champion Award for Advocacy: An individual or entity who positively influences public policy, uses the media to raise the profile sustainable seafood, or influences public discourse and engages key stakeholders by publicly championing advances in sustainable seafood.
Four finalists and one winner will be chosen for each of the categories once nominations have been collected and reviewed.
With so much happening in the name of sustainability within the seafood industry, celebrating and telling the stories of the movement’s pioneers can have a wide-ranging, positive impact, according to the awards organizers.
“There are so many great sustainable seafood initiatives and projects across the globe being led by the seafood industry and with industry working in collaboration with governments, the conservation community and seafood dependent communities,” Diversified Communications Vice President Liz Plizga said.
“The Seafood Champion Awards let us celebrate the great efforts within the seafood industry to drive real change toward sustainability, and also allow us to tell positive stories about how such sustainable seafood supports communities, a healthy ocean, and provides a healthy clean protein to billions of consumers,” SeaWeb President and CEO Mark J. Spalding said.
