[ FISHERIES ] Certification procedure based on transparency and independent oversight
Sustainability – the MSC model Sustainability is a term which has rapidly become an integral part of our everyday vocabulary. Once something of a fringe concept, it is now a fundamental consideration in almost everything we do. Ultimately, this stems from an ever-increasing understanding that the natural resources we consume are far from inexhaustible. Essentially, if we don’t modify our consumption to allow these resources to replenish themselves, then they will simply disappear.
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Chain of Custody Standard
his is the seed from which the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) has grown. An independent charity, the MSC came into being over a decade ago as the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and Unilever (amongst others) sought a realistic path to rebuild and conserve the planet’s wild fish species.
Balancing precision with adaptability A great deal of effort has been devoted to how best to achieve this mission through the MSC Sustainable Fishing and Chain of Custody Standards. The world’s fisheries are not neat, easily definable and measurable things. Fish stocks grow and shrink and move around with no regard for political boundaries. This means involvement and communication across the lines that lie between nations, continents, fishing organisations, producer organisations, different consumer markets, different wholesalers and retailers and finally on to the consumers themselves. This makes the MSC Sustainable Fishing Standard necessarily complex. For it to be robust enough to provide a set of clear rules and guidelines that can cater for all of the different ecosystems, species, management systems and fishing practices in use around the world, the mechanisms that define it 52
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As fish stocks grow and shrink and move around with no regard for political boundaries, a standard that takes all circumstances and stakeholders into account is necessarily complex.
need to strike a delicate balance between precision and adaptability. By the nature of the industry, there are many interested parties who must all be involved in a way that is structured and objective enough to yield accurate, measurable outcomes. This is where the independent Certification Bodies (CBs) come in. There are currently nine certification bodies accredited to assess fisheries against the MSC Sustainable Fishing Standard and 21 accredited to assess against the MSC Chain of Custody (CoC) Standard. The process by which a CB becomes accredited is exhaustive and is overseen
by the MSC’s appointed accreditation body Accreditation Services International (ASI), wherein an aspiring MSC Certification Body must prove that it has the expertise, credentials, systems and procedures in place to correctly implement and interpret the requirements of the Standard itself. The CB is an independent and impartial body which takes the standard which the MSC has created and holds it up against the existing practices of a fishery or chain of custody client to determine whether they meet these requirements. The requirements for the two Standards (Sustainable Fishing and Chain of Custody) are very different.
A Chain of Custody assessment is required by any company that takes ‘ownership’ of MSC certified product and who intend to sell product that will carry the MSC logo. The applicant company is assessed by a rigorous on-site audit of their operating procedures, management practices and traceability systems to ensure that only fish products that come from an MSC Certified fishery carry the MSC logo and the systems they have in place will ensure there is separation from any non-MSC approved products being handled. This is carried out by a qualified auditor, with support from the CB’s administration and certification staff.
Sustainable Fishing Standard By contrast, a full MSC fishery assessment can take anything from 12 months to (in exceptional circumstances) several years. The process usually, though not always, begins with a Pre-assessment, which is essentially a desktop summary assessment to determine whether an applicant already complies with the different criteria within the MSC Standard. This provides the opportunity to bring to the applicant fishery’s attention any areas where compliance is potentially www.eurofishmagazine.com