The Marine Stewardship Council Programme - SEAFOOD Ecolabelling: Principles and Practice - page 88

assessment of European fisheries can be met from relevant EU grants available in
each member state.
Potential client fisheries can also reduce the costs of assessment by ensuring
quotes are obtained from at least two if not three of the independently accredited
certification bodies. And costs can be minimised by proactive management of the
assessment process in terms of ensuring relevant data is captured and made available
to the assessment teams when required and that contracts are precise in terms of
timelines and deliverables. There are currently four certification bodies accredited to
certify fisheries as meeting the MSC standard (www.msc.org), and another four are
undergoing accreditation. Nine certification bodies are accredited to issue chain-of-
custody certificates, with another three seeking accreditation. Guidance for fishery
clients on how to choose a certification body and how to minimise costs during the
assessment process is made available on MSC's website. The MSC also provides
detailed guidance to businesses preparing for chain-of-custody certification, in the
'MyMSC' handbook (MSC 2006c).
The time and length of fishery assessments and their associated costs are also
understandably influenced by the size, location and complexity of each individual
fishery coming forward into the assessment process. Anecdotal evidence suggests
that the direct assessment costs (the costs payable to the certifier) can be as low as
$20 000 for small community-based fisheries and increase to perhaps $200 000-
300 000 for the largest fisheries. MSC does not normally know the cost of assess-
ments, as contracts are commercially confidential between fishery clients and their
chosen certifier. Beyond the direct assessment costs, clients and management agen-
cies can also incur additional costs in terms of their own staff time and management
costs related to the assessment. There are also costs as a result of implementing
specific improvements required through the assessment process (the 'conditions')
to reduce or minimise the risk or likelihood that the fishery will no longer meet the
MSC standard.
The MSC has no direct financial interest in the fishery or chain-of-custody certi-
fication process. However, the MSC is able to recover a component of its own costs
to run and administer the programme through the requirement of logo licensees to
pay a volume royalty fee for the use of the logo on consumer-facing packaging.
This fee is paid to MSC's trading company, Marine Stewardship Council Interna-
tional, which gifts any surplus back to the Charity. There is no charge for charitable,
educational or public sector use of the logo. Logo license agreements can only be
issued to companies that have a valid chain-of-custody certificate, and the charges
are based on a fixed annual fee plus, if the product is intended for consumers,
0.1% of sales of MSC-labelled fish. For the year ended April 2007, logo licensing
generated less than 6% of MSC's income needs (Plate 4.1). As the MSC grows
and expands, it is generally recognised that this license fee will need to increase to
enable the organisation to develop a more sustainable funding model and to provide
the resources to reinvest in its systems and procedures to both protect and promote
the brand.