The Science Based Targets Network (SBTN) – a collaborative organization comprising several environmental NGOs that aims to help companies and cities set climate- and nature-based objectives – has launched its first science-based targets (SBTs) focused specifically on the ocean, starting with seafood.
SBTN Technical Director Varsha Vijay said that the ocean-based SBTs strive to combat overexploitation of wild seafood stocks, harm to marine habitats, and threats posed by fishing and aquaculture to endangered marine wildlife through quantifiable targets.
“SBTs provide a structure with a rigorous science-driven framework to guide companies through a clear and strategic decision-making process, ensuring that the targets are rooted in data, aligned with environmental risks and opportunities, and providing companies with the confidence to integrate them into business planning,” she said during the project’s launch.
Vijay explained that all companies that commit to SBTN have their targets validated independently by an Accountability Accelerator, which provides companies with confirmation that their targets are in line with the best available science and follows the rules set out by SBTN.
"The SBTN Ocean Hub and the Accountability Accelerator are currently working together to ensure a robust validation process for the seafood targets, and next steps for these validation services will be announced in due course," she said.
For now, SBTN is seeking companies that are interested in setting targets and tracking their progress.
"We are looking for a range of companies to join the first cohort of businesses setting seafood targets, as this will allow us to demonstrate the applicability of the SBTN process for actors throughout the value chain who are utilizing various sourcing or production models," Ashley Apel, the director of strategy and partnerships at Conservation International, which launched the project with the World Wildlife Fund, told SeafoodSource. “This includes companies of all sizes with seafood in their portfolios.”
Apel added that she could not share how many companies have registered interest in being in this first cohort but that the SBTN has received interest from geographically diverse companies across the seafood supply chain.
"The interest at this time is about what we expected, recognizing the industry is facing uncertainty at the moment due to global trade negotiations," Apel said.
The SBTN started in 2019 with the goal of setting the bar for what cities and companies should demand to “stay within Earth's limits and meet society's needs.”
The initiative was founded by CDP, the World Resources Institute, the World Wildlife Fund, the United Nations Global Compact, Conservation International, UNEP-WCMC, and the World Economic Forum and receives fiscal funding from Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors and project-based funding from several other philanthropic initiatives, including the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and Norway's International Climate and Forest Initiative.
