Seafood Eco-Label MSC's Revised Standard – Big Blue Future or Big Blue Failure?

Zurich/Switzerland, 02 May 2023. Make Stewardship Count, a coalition of more than 90 global marine conservation organizations, experts and academics, released today its final set of scorecards assessing the new Fisheries Standard of the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC). A number of critical issues the coalition pressed the MSC to improve during the multi-year review process did result in a strengthened Standard, but ended up including some concerning loopholes.

The final scorecards — based on a traffic light assessment — therefore, remain mostly red and yellow.

MSC’s Fisheries Standard is meant to provide a framework within which the environmental impacts and effective management of a fishery can be assessed before it can use the MSC blue tick label. Consumers trust that the label — affixed to more than 20,000 products globally — represents seafood caught sustainably and ethically. However, the coalition fears that the label will continue to be awarded to fisheries that routinely catch vulnerable animals, waste excessive amounts of sea life, damage ecosystems and catch overfished species.

Early drafts of the new Standard generated optimism, as they included a requirement for scientifically peer-reviewed levels of independent observation of most fisheries, which would have ensured both a greater understanding of and ability to mitigate fisheries impacts on species at risk. To the coalition’s dismay, the final Standard removed these proposed requirements for all fisheries except those on the high seas.

“The recent Fisheries Standard Review process provided a historic opportunity for the MSC to drive real changes in global fishery management throughout the next decade, especially with regard to requirements for increased monitoring and compliance,” said Shannon Arnold, senior marine program coordinator of the Ecology Action Centre. “Like many parts of the final Standard, the MSC’s intentions were on the right path. On the surface the scoring metrics are stronger, however, the devil is in the details and those details ended up including loopholes, opt-outs, and weak definitions that will undermine the certification intentions.

Throughout the review process, the coalition had challenged MSC to strengthen its requirements for the protection of Endangered, Threatened and Protected (ETP) species, and is pleased that the final Standard has strengthened the requirements to reduce fishing impacts related to these species. However, underlying definitions included in the Standard related to ETP species are concerning. IUCN “Vulnerable” species — a critical ask from Make Stewardship Count — have been left out. The new Standard could also result in some economically valuable fisheries targeting ETP species being awarded the MSC’s blue tick, as assessment bodies will be allowed to modify a number of the ETP definition requirements based on the application of criteria that the coalition feels are not sufficiently precautionary.