Eight years to save the ocean
Business should lead when it comes to sustainability, not follow
The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 14 sets a deadline of 2030 to take our use of the world’s oceans to a sustainable level, ending overfishing and unlawful fishing, and ensuring that marine and coastal environments are properly managed.
That leaves us just eight years, and the question addressed by a senior panel at the Seafood Futures Forum at the Seafood Expo Global was: how can this be done?
The discussion started with a video address from Peter Thomson, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for the Ocean.
He warned: “If we take care of the ocean it will take care of us, but human pressure on the ocean is reaching unsustainable levels… there can be no healthy planet without a healthy ocean.”
It’s a massive task, but as Rupert Howes, CEO of the Marine Stewardship Council explained, there are already examples of how it could be achieved. The MSC has, for example, been working with the South African hake industry to help it to become more sustainable. Now, there have been around 2,000 measurable improvements and the region’s two hake stocks are back at sustainable levels. Bird bycatch, once a serious problem, has now been reduced by 90%.
In his keynote speech, former J.Sainsbury CEO Justin King CBE argued that business has a critical part to play in achieving the UN goals. And while there is a place for collaboration, he said, competition – “the most powerful force in our democracy” – could achieve even more.
King said: “Collaboration tends to set a low bar… competition does the opposite. And competition attracts money.”
He also said that business should lead the way to better practices, rather than waiting to be led by consumers, and should focus on the kind of questions consumers may be asking in future.
King said he believed that celebrating good practice – on the principle that “what gets rewarded gets repeated” was more effective than simply punishing bad practice.
Targets, he added, needed to be a mix of big targets – which are necessary but sometimes demoralisingly hard to achieve – and achievable small targets to ensure that momentum continues.
As he pointed out, Sainsbury’s was one of the first retailers to adopt MSC certification. He urged: “Help us to compete – help the good guys win.”
In a general panel discussion moderated by Natasja Ven Den Berg, participants address the question: can we save the ocean in just eight years?
Minna Epps, Director of the Global Marine and Polar Programme, International Union for the Conservation of Nature, stressed that challenges are far-reaching: “The ocean is more sour, warmer and ultimately breathless. We don’t realise how we are changing the chemistry of the ocean.”
Jose Luis Jaregui is Sustainability Manager with Echebaster Pesquera, a Basque tuna fishing company with a fleet of six vessels. He talked about how his company worked to achieve MSC certification and added that next year, when Echebaster goes for recertification, he hopes to be able to go beyond the MSC requirements.
Michaela Reischl, Head of CSR, Lidl Spain, said: “We have to be ambitious.”
Already, 80% of seafood sold by Lidl in Spain is MSC-certified, but as Rischl put it: “We don’t want to make our customers choose between sustainable and unsustainable products. We have to provide a 100% guarantee.”
Business has the responsibility and the capability to lead the way, Justin King concluded. He said: “Risk capital is the most powerful force we can unleash on this problem.”