Anecdotes and Lessons of a Decade - SEAFOOD Ecolabelling: Principles and Practice - page 417

remain as supportive adjuncts to the other more traditional 'top-down' control mea-
sures. The evolutionary history of the dolphin-friendly ecolabel may be interpreted
as supporting such arguments. Although the ecolabels of today are mainly focused
on market issues, they are showing signs of adaptation and there is some hope that
in the future they can also begin to achieve environmental outcomes.

21.2 Design of ecolabelling programmes

The rapid proliferation of ecolabels, certification-based recommendations, ratings
and guides in the marketplace is certain to heighten confusion in consumers' minds.
While it is clearly a benefit for competitive marketing purposes to create differ-
ent labels to operate in different market niches and create product differentiation,
the natural outcome of this market-based process is that consumers will rely less
on the product claims and look more to the standing of the organisations behind
the label or product recommendation. The 'proliferation of self-serving seafood
labels' (Jacquet & Pauly 2007) is a predictable market response, and in other
ecolabel systems has been used as a tool to create market niches and opportu-
nities. These labels profess to have ecological benefits but may in fact have little
relationship with sustainability of fish stocks or ecosystem improvements. For ex-
ample, the Australian Southern Rock Lobster 'Clean Green' label promotes itself
as a form of 'ecolabel', with a blue tick and a website clearly designed to influ-
ence consumers into thinking that there are ecological sustainability issues that
underpin the label (http://www.southernrocklobster.com/cleangreen/default.aspx,
Chapter 1). However, the programme rules for the 'Clean Green' self-assessment
system have little relevance to ecological issues, relying on poorly specified forms
of industry 'best practice', and there is no evidence that the label carries with it any
form of ecological performance requirement that is exceptional or any ecological
requirements that go beyond the ordinary requirements for rock lobster fishing.
Further, there is no easily publicly accessible specification of the 'Clean Green'
standard, the system of verification, reports of compliance issues, or any other form
of public reporting that could be used to access information about the ecological
performance of a fishery certified by this label. In other countries, the ecolabelling
of seafood products has produced bans by celebrity chefs and rival supermarket
chains of products bearing alternative ecolabels, with claims that the competing
ecolabel is nothing more than a publicity stunt (Christie 2007a, b).
In a market environment of many competing ecolabelling programmes with
different standards, if there is no truly 'gold-star' certification and ecolabelling
programme that provides the high-quality benchmark standard for ecological sus-
tainability, then it seems likely that the overall effectiveness of seafood ecolabelling
will go into decline. A plethora of competing claims and ecolabels will reduce the
appeal of individual ecolabels to consumers, provide smaller returns for producers
and reduce the incentive that drives the market-based process. This will inevitably