A recent study published in Marine Policy indicates that pre-competitive collaborations like SeaBOS are likely having an impact on seafood sustainability beyond the companies that take part in the collaboration.
SeaBOS – which stands for Seafood Business for Ocean Stewardship – launched in 2016 as a means of promoting and improving the sustainability in the seafood industry. Member companies include Maruha Nichiro, Nippon Suisan, Thai Union, Dongwon Industries, Nutreco, Cargill Animal Nutrition, Cermaq, and Charoen Pokphand Foods.
The organization released its first progress report in 2022 showcasing member progress on a number of key initiatives, including new software to tackle bycatch, a risk-mapping tool for labor abuse and illegal fishing, and an initiative on how to better trigger positive change beyond just SeaBOS member companies.
The new study, “Exploring evidence of cascading change towards stewardship in the Japanese seafood industry,” examined whether those efforts were bearing any fruit and how much progress the industry is making in terms of sustainability.
“There is a growing global demand for a more sustainable seafood industry, and pre-competitive initiatives have emerged on multiple continents to meet this demand,” the study states. “Such initiatives could have ‘cascading effects,’ suggesting that their impacts may extend beyond their direct participants to effect broader, industry-wide change.”
Until now, those cascading effects have been largely hypothetical, and little research has been conducted on whether the goals of SeaBOS and other pre-competitive collaborations are achievable.
According to the study, evidence shows SeaBOS’s hypothesis had some merit.
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