Anecdotes and Lessons of a Decade - SEAFOOD Ecolabelling: Principles and Practice - page 429

decisions, and if this is also perceived by resellers, then buying guides and prod-
uct recommendations will be effective if mainly targeted at the seafood buyers,
wholesalers and other intermediaries such as chefs. However, if consumers do not
perceive that a benefit will actually be conferred through their selective choice of
recommended products, then the market incentive will be diminished and resellers
promoting certified or recommended products will receive little benefit. Seafood
procurement and restaurant programmes using the procurement and buying guide
approaches, such as the language of 'best choice', therefore actually depend on the
same consumers, the same level of awareness and the same market incentive as that
of the certification and ecolabelling programmes.
Some observers (e.g. Gulbrandsen 2006) consider that certification and ecola-
belling has been driven primarily by major corporations, major NGOs and gov-
ernments, and not by consumers. While these organisations may be implementing
or promoting the certification, all forms of certification, ecolabelling, product rec-
ommendation and buying guides that trade the sustainability message must be
underpinned by the market-based incentive created through consumers purchasing
choices. While the differences between these various types of programmes include
the form of consumer advice delivered, the types of organisations promoting them,
the messages and delivery media, and the different parts of the seafood supply chain
targeted, the end result is intended to be the same - the creation of leverage to im-
prove the ecological sustainability of fishery and aquaculture practices by reducing
the production of seafood that has greater ecological impacts than that of alternative
products.
Consumers who are not well educated about the various programmes or the issues
of seafood sustainability may be confused by the different messages. Such confu-
sion amongst messages in the market may be counter-productive, and this could
be exploited by less scrupulous players seeking to establish ecolabels or product
recommendations that are weak and provide no basis for improving fishery prac-
tices. In the absence of a government-established minimum standard, programmes
such as dolphin-safe that have widespread and diverse ecolabels, not all of which
are backed by readily available standards and verification systems, may mislead
consumers and falsely remove the market-based incentive because they remove
the element of purchasing choice (when all products are labelled). However, it is
clear that all forms of these programmes rely on the same fundamental driver - the
incentive created through the ready availability in the same market of equivalent
products that carry ecolabels or product recommendations alongside products that
may carry less appeal for the consumer. When the market is saturated with labels
and product recommendations on most of the equivalent and competing products,
the incentive is diminished or extinguished, and this reinforces the role of regulatory
action to maintain a minimum standard of environmental performance, no matter
what form of certification system applies.
Eventually, across all these issues and types of product guides and recommen-
dations, consumers can only rely on the quality of the standard underpinning the