Ecolabelling of Seafood: The Basic Concepts - SEAFOOD Ecolabelling: Principles and Practice - page 24

a low-cost system for assessment and verification of compliance with the stan-
dard (to promote the extent of uptake of the voluntary label to drive the improve-
ments in environmental performance sought by the programme).

Different interpretations of these key factors have resulted in some substantially
different outcomes by different programmes, and conflicting recommendations
have been issued to consumers. For example, in 2004, the Sierra Club of Canada
(BC Chapter) issued a 'Citizens Guide to Seafood' that recommended 20 types of
seafood as 'Do Not Eat' (Plate 1.2). These types included species that either were
already certified by the MSC (New Zealand hoki) or were under MSC assessment
(Alaska pollock), and consumers could have reasonably expected that such species
might have been more appropriately placed in either the 'OK for Now' or 'Ecolog-
ical Concerns/Be Cautious' recommendations, based on the MSC standard. Since
that time, there have been attempts by the NGO programmes to adopt a more con-
sistent set of seafood recommendations, although NGOs still reserve the right to
promote different recommendations to suit their specific constituency or standards
(see Chapter 17). The 2006 recommendations from the Canada-based Sustainable
Seafood Canada (version 09/2006; www.seachoice.org) place Alaska pollock in the
'Best Choice' category and there is no recommendation for hoki although both are
MSC-certified. Such conflicting recommendations serve to increase confusion in
the minds of consumers and in the marketplace, and raise concerns about the relia-
bility of the various ecolabels and buying guides and possibly the credibility of the
organisations issuing the conflicting recommendations. This may potentially lead
to broader consumer mistrust in the concept of seafood ecolabelling and diminished
effectiveness of the market-incentive to create environmental change.
The question of the robustness of the standard and the ability of the certifica-
tion programme to actually achieve better environmental outcomes (as opposed to
better marketing opportunities) is not unique to seafood, or even natural resources
certification. For example, this is also an issue in the certification of shade-grown
coffee in relation to the conservation of butterflies and birds (Mas & Dietsch 2004).
In the certification of forests within the FSC programme, such questions have also
been raised (Gullison 2003).

1.7 Ecolabelling in the marketplace

There are many ecolabelling schemes in operation, but most do not include ma-
rine or freshwater fisheries or aquaculture. For example, the GEN (www.gen.gr.jp)
represents members from 27 countries that administer ecolabelling programmes
covering thousands of products. These include two well-known examples: the For-
est Stewardship Council (FSC) and the Blue Angel. The MSC programme was
adapted from experiences with the FSC (discussed in Chapter 14), but here we