Measuring the Success of Seafood Ecolabelling - SEAFOOD Ecolabelling: Principles and Practice - page 236

Agnew et al . 2006 (and reported in Chapter 11), many of the environmental im-
provements that are likely to occur will be prior to the MSC assessment process
(during the preliminary assessments that occur within a fishery, and surrounding
the pre-assessment stage). Improvements may occur as each venture prepares for
MSC assessment and determines what aspects need improvement to be able to meet
the level of performance encoded in the MSC Principles and Criteria (Chaffee et al .
2003). The gains reported by Agnew et al . (2006) therefore probably underesti-
mate the real environmental gains directly and indirectly created by the MSC pro-
gramme. These include the influence on fisheries that may not be planning for MSC
certification in the future but wish to maintain parity with MSC-certified fisheries,
establishment of credible sustainability models for emulation by other programmes
and sector activities (creation of innovation and diffusion, Muller 2002), such as
Australia's Guidelines for the Ecologically Sustainable Management of Fisheries
(see Chapter 1). Limiting an evaluation of success in the MSC programme to the
conditions imposed by certifiers also greatly constrains the relative comparison of
the importance of such gains because the conditions are set relative to the flexible
standard established by each certifier, and this is likely to differ amongst certified
fisheries. A condition to be achieved in one fishery is not directly comparable to
a condition to be achieved in another fishery in terms of their ecological success.
In the MSC evaluation (Agnew et al . 2006), only 18% of the reported gains were
considered to be actual ecological outcome gains, and many of these were difficult
to uniquely or even substantially attribute to the effects of the MSC programme.
Since the success of a programme depends on its robustness at achieving actual
environmental improvements and demonstrating such achievements, consumers
who do not perceive an incentive programme to be well managed will not consider
the endorsements to be credible, and will not therefore support the incentive. For
example, demonstrating that the programme is not overly influenced by vested
interests or pressures that are not disclosed in the product endorsement, that the
endorsement is technically correct and robust and that the decision system and
procedures are transparent and accessible will provide support and comfort for
consumers who may be inclined to support the incentive (US Consumers Union:
www.eco-labels.org/good ecolabel.cfm).
It is also important that consumers understand the extent to which the objectives
of the incentive programme are in accordance with the issues that need to be re-
solved within the relevant seafood sector. In other words, is the programme design
sufficiently able to address the key environmental issues facing the specific seafood
product bearing the label or product endorsement? The success of the programme
is also related to how the internal processes operate - is the administration effective
and efficient, is the integrity of the programme reasonably protected from external
influence?
Success of a seafood incentive programme is therefore established by evaluating
each of the key attributes of the assessment system to determine if they are in