New England Aquarium: Supporting Environmentally Responsible Seafood Choices - SEAFOOD Ecolabelling: Principles and Practice - page 323

16.2 The Aquarium's programme

The New England Aquarium works to protect critical marine resources by partner-
ing with major seafood buyers to help them identify and source environmentally
responsible seafood. This programme was one of the first initiatives by a non-
governmental organisation (NGO) to partner with a multinational corporation to
advance ocean conservation through influencing seafood procurement. It was initi-
ated in 2000 when the Aquarium formed a partnership with the food retailer Royal
Ahold to improve the sustainability of its seafood products. Royal Ahold is cur-
rently the world's sixth largest food retailer and food service group with annual
sales in excess of US$77.5 billion in 2006, and is the parent company of several
retail and food service organisations in Europe and the US. Ahold USA is their
retail branch in the US and, as the founding partner, has publicly referred to the
partnership as the ChoiceCatch R

programme.
Ahold USA operates four supermarket chains in the US and serves about 20 mil-
lion customers per week. In an effort to streamline their seafood purchasing, Ahold
USA has centralised the seafood procurement operations for all their supermarkets,
and this has facilitated the Aquarium's ability to influence the seafood sourcing op-
erations within the company. The Aquarium works to support Ahold USA as it
develops and implements realistic sourcing practices that ensure environmental ac-
countability throughout the supply chain. By doing so, the Aquarium helps Ahold
USA use its buying power to encourage fishers and fish farmers to make proactive
changes that favour the environment.
As part of the partnership with Ahold USA, Aquarium scientists conduct re-
search on the seafood species Ahold USA sells in its stores and, after analysing this
information, develop buying recommendations. The research is conducted at the
level of distinct populations, or stocks, for wild-caught species, and at the level of
specific aquaculture operations, or farms, for farmed fish, shellfish and crustaceans.
Buying recommendations are then passed on to Ahold USA's Perishable Procure-
ment Organisation for consideration and implementation in the company's buying
strategies. This approach promotes resource stewardship by supplying wholesale-
level seafood buyers with the best available scientific information to enable them to
incorporate environmental responsibility into their purchasing decisions. The pro-
gramme has the potential to influence large-scale buying patterns and to improve
marine conservation on a global scale because of Ahold USA's significant influence
in the seafood industry and market, and because of the short- and long-term op-
portunities to share the Aquarium's scientific research and analysis with additional
players in the industry.
This potential for significant influence on the long-term viability of marine re-
sources was the basis for the development of the corporate seafood advisory pro-
gramme. At the time when the Ahold USA-Aquarium partnership was initiated in