Dr Wesley Malcorps and team introduce this new company venture providing sustainability assessment services to the aquaculture value chain:
Sustainability claims need to be credible and not only a “box ticking” exercise on a common set of practices. Understanding the sustainability performance of seafood requires a comprehensive assessment covering carefully selected environmental indicators, as well as considering socio-economic, human nutrition and fish welfare aspects. If we don’t include them all, are we really talking about sustainability?
This Word Art image is based on a study by Malcorps et al. (2021): Global Seafood Trade: Insights in Sustainability Messaging and Claims of the Major Producing and Consuming Regions. https://doi.org/10.3390/su132111720
To understand sustainability, we need good data on the origin of products and how they have been treated along the value chain. Effective traceability can support this process – a commercial imperative as we increasingly need to understand the entire life cycle and footprint of the products we consume or sell. More than ever, sustainability needs to be seen as a journey, not an endpoint. Improvement is a constant requirement – something Sustainable Fisheries Partnership, and others have been highlighting for a couple of decades now. But improvement is no longer about "getting to certification", we need to go "beyond certification" if the industry is to address all of its challenges. Understanding current performance against today’s criteria can provide a framework for understanding the potential for blue food to be "sustainable", but any assessment should really provide an improvement roadmap to continue moving the sector forward. Therefore, we’ve launched Blue Food Performance, offering independent, transparent, and scientifically verified blue food sustainability assessments through a unique collaboration between academia and industry, utilising the latest knowledge to ensure scientific integrity and commercial relevance.
Watch our 5-minute Problem-Solution pitch
Various types of analysis are offered by BFP which all focus on the whole seafood value chain (including the production of aquaculture feed and the sourcing of the ingredients it contains) to avoid sustainability blind spots:
Environmental; standardized LCAs aligned with the European Commission’s Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) method – comprehensively accounting for the impacts throughout the entire production cycle, and potentially “avoided emissions (scope 4)” as well.
Socio-Economic; more detailed socio-economic performance assessments, such as gender and salary distribution.
Human Nutrition & Health; Or broader assessments, including nutritional Life Cycle Assessments – where the provision of nutrients and the impact on human health and the environment is considered as well. Such assessments could benefit seafood considering its unique nutrient composition and relatively low impact compared with terrestrial animal-source foods.
Fish Welfare; health, well-being, and natural behaviours.
Our interdisciplinary team possesses a deep understanding of the global seafood industry, along with extensive expertise in both quantitative and qualitative research methods, data analysis, and stakeholder engagement. We offer socio-economic, environmental, nutritional and fish welfare performance assessments for companies at any node along the value chain and provide guidance and support to enhance sustainability performance.
Blue Food Performance is supported by the University of Stirling’s Enterprise Programme, which enables entrepreneurship and innovative business start-ups. For further information and contact details please see the website www.bluefoodperformance.com
