Ecolabelling of Seafood: The Basic Concepts - SEAFOOD Ecolabelling: Principles and Practice - page 20

should be designed and implemented through the balancing forces applied in the
marketplace.
Just as there is no overall global governance or framework system for seafood
ecolabelling, there is little or no coordination or consistency of terminology and
concepts amongst the various ecolabelling, rating or guide programmes. For exam-
ple, probably the most basic issue - sustainability - is not an agreed and well-defined
concept (see Chapter 10), and it is interpreted in many different ways by the various
programmes. This is compounded to a large extent by the different interpretations
of sustainability by different cultures, countries and governments. This also leads
to a more practical problem - even the basic concepts may be difficult to trans-
late into other languages, reflecting different cultural perspectives. This diversity
of interpretation of the basic concepts has created the situation where the product
endorsements of some programmes have a different meaning from very similar
endorsements applied in other programmes. This may easily confuse consumers,
and ultimately degrade the value of the product endorsement system through lack
of acceptance of the truth of the claims about products (see below). In recogni-
tion of this problem, the MSC is engaged in public discussion and input to the
definition of a 'sustainable fishery' through its Quality and Consistency Project
(Chapter 4).
Owners of ecolabel programmes each have a responsibility to design, develop
and maintain a programme that has sufficient credibility and resourcing to be self-
sustaining. For this to occur, the programmes must have independent sources of
funding and staffing resources to underpin their governance systems, or to have
a resourcing support system related to sales of seafood products, or be linked to
organisations prepared to fund ecolabelling programmes for the purpose of improv-
ing the sustainability of fisheries and aquaculture operations.
A comprehensive and effective ecolabelling programme addressing sustainability
issues in aquaculture and wild-capture fisheries should be accountable and include
at least these basic elements:
a clearly defined scope and set of rules, practices and operational interpretations
for the conduct of the assessment and certification process;
a clearly defined and public sustainability standard against which the fishery
or aquaculture venture is assessed against, including both the parameters and a
measurable benchmark level encoded into the standard;
a consultation standard for the involvement of stakeholders and public reporting
of the processes and procedures used by the certifier to assess and determine
compliance with the sustainability standard;
a clear and well-defined process for determining the security of the chain of
custody of the certified and labelled product;
a clear and well-defined process for public reporting on the accountability of
the certifier and the assessment process, and the accreditation/verification of
certifiers;