The World Benchmarking Alliance (WBA) is a nonprofit organization that aims to hold companies accountable toward achieving the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, mainly through publishing free and publicly available benchmarks on their performance.
Through the release of its latest Seafood Stewardship Index Insights Report, the WBA announced seafood assessments will now be integrated in its Food and Agriculture Benchmark. Besides that move, the WBA is implementing other changes that highlight the evolving role of corporate accountability mechanisms that accurately reflect the needs of impacted stakeholders across supply chains.
SeafoodSource spoke with WBA Ocean Spotlight and Engagement Lead Emily Howgate about the evolving focus of the organization and what it means for the seafood industry.
SeafoodSource: WBA appears to be making a shift from a focus on responsibility and stewardship to a focus on accountability. What is the thinking behind this evolution?
Howgate: When WBA was launched back in 2018, the focus was on creating real change in the way that business impact was measured to boost motivation and stimulate action for a sustainable future that works for everyone. This was at a time when there was a fair amount of excitement about how the private sector was coming on board with sustainability, and WBA’s work was part of accelerating the race to the top.
WBA still holds this as a useful approach, but as time has gone on, we have seen that the rate and scale of business action is mismatched with the progress needed for a healthy world. Last year, for example, the world passed the halfway mark on the deadline to achieve the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, but only 12 percent of the targets were on track.
Measuring companies' progress is still necessary in 2024, but without accountability, businesses will not take the action both people and the planet desperately need. WBA specifically focuses on the world’s 2,000 most influential companies, which include businesses from various sectors that have the largest global footprints.
These companies have a responsibility, and it should be consequential to these companies whether they live up to that responsibility. This is something we’ve become more galvanized around, as outlined in our 2023 White Paper, and that builds on work from other advocates of corporate accountability over the years.
Our own benchmark results show that while some corporations actively engage in sustainability, these initiatives aren’t undertaken by all, and laggards hold back overall progress. This has ramifications for all of us in society, so it also needs to have more ramifications for these poor actors.
This is what we are trying to emphasize in evolving from responsibility and stewardship to accountability. We need more concrete and measurable actions from companies and have these transparently shared so that there can be collective learning and more scrutiny.
SeafoodSource: Though it is shifting focus, is WBA still using a framework, such as the Sustainable Development Goals, that is familiar to industry?
Howgate: Absolutely. Corporate accountability must be rooted in global agendas like the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals in order to drive the business transformation that the world needs. These agendas might not be perfect, but they are the result of intense political processes informed by both science and civil society. As we spin through space on this pale blue dot, they are some of the most ambitious and inclusive agreements we have for humanity.
Alongside the development goals, other international agreements like the Paris Agreement and the recently adopted Global Biodiversity Framework are also important reference points for our work – and for corporate accountability more broadly. These global agendas set collective goals and aspirations for sustainable development.
Business transformation, alongside action of governments and civil society, is vital if we are to keep the global temperature increase below 1.5 degrees Celsius, halt biodiversity loss, restore nature, reduce inequalities, and uphold basic human rights.
While there’s no one solution for all, we believe that a multi-stakeholder approach is best to keep companies accountable. As well as other citizen and NGO groups, we’re seeing more companies acting pre-competitively and seeking clearer guidance and mechanisms from international agendas and national policymakers.
SeafoodSource: Besides the shift toward accountability, WBA also seems to have placed a greater emphasis on impacted stakeholders. What does that change reflect?
Howgate: Collective awareness – and, hence, expectations – around the way corporations interact with and affect people day to day has increased massively. This includes workers, local communities, and Indigenous peoples. There are several reasons for this much-needed – and, frankly, overdue – greater focus, but part of it is that citizen activism, coupled with the power of social media and the exposing work of investigative journalism, means there are less places to hide poor business behavior.
This year, WBA published its first Social Benchmark, assessing the world’s 2,000 most influential companies, including some of the largest seafood companies and food brands. These businesses have revenue equivalent to 45 percent of global GDP and employ 95 million people directly across 87 countries, as well as potentially hundreds of millions more through their value chains.
Yet, 90 percent of the assessed companies are not even halfway to meeting fundamental expectations on human rights, decent work, and ethical conduct. For example, only 9 percent show how they consult workers or communities affected by their operations; only 4 percent pay or have a target to pay living wage, and just 2 percent disclose their global gender pay gap.
The work we’re doing at WBA is trying to act for these fundamental human needs and rights, but we also know we need to do an even better job of listening directly to and working with the most affected communities. This seems extra vital as WBA looks more at marine industries, given some of the most horrifying abuses can happen at sea.
Work with impacted communities is complex and takes time, but it’s also some of the most vital and motivating.
SeafoodSource: What does all this mean for the seafood industry?
Howgate: In many ways, that’s for stakeholders collectively to decide, and it’s something we’re keen to work with others to clarify.
By being a significant source of nutritious and low carbon protein for more than three billion people and supporting the livelihoods of more 500 million people, the industry has a key role to play in achieving sustainable and equitable food systems while, at the same time, protecting and restoring oceans. Yet, our data shows that though progress is being made, most of the companies assessed still fail to demonstrate meaningful efforts to address their social and environmental impacts. We need more action and more accountability for that.
So far, WBA’s insights show some key cross-sectoral threads that are relevant for seafood.
For example, companies need to set time-bound, measurable, and comprehensive targets and report these. This is within companies’ ability to implement and marries ambition and action – especially when responsibility is embedded in a company’s governance.
Another operational thread is around data. To inform targets and reporting, we need better data, particularly data that’s accurate and accessible. So, for example, having full-chain digital and interoperable data that is transparently shared is a big part of reducing operational impact and risk.
Also, there’s an opportunity to look beyond what companies implement, such as their influence. Lobbying and advocacy can be hugely powerful but, so far, tends to be very opaque.
Our latest Seafood Stewardship Index results showed it was a rarity for seafood companies to disclose their activities in this area, and there’s a risk of misalignment between sustainability targets and wider trade advocacy. Personally, I think this influence angle is a huge collective opportunity for the sector to show leadership. This can sometimes mean longer timelines, but the impacts can be more far-reaching than individual action.
So much of the marine industry is going farther and deeper into the ocean – into waters that are part of the global commons rather than national jurisdiction. So far, the biodiversity of these international waters have lacked shared protection, but the High Seas Treaty is a key tool in protecting these areas and managing resources fairly. Action from the seafood sector – an industry so viscerally connected to marine life – could help encourage nation states to rapidly ratify this treaty.
While the seafood sector is often [considered] one of the biggest impacts on marine biodiversity, it can also be one of its biggest advocates.
