SFP’s overall ambition has always been to see that 100% of seafood worldwide is produced sustainably – in other words, to give everyone in the world the chance to eat sustainable seafood. This is obviously a distant and aspirational goal, likely many decades away into the future, but if we’re ever going to get there we need to lay out a route, complete with milestones and targets.
There are many ways to achieve this distant goal, but the one SFP favors involves mobilizing improvements in as much of the world’s production as fast as possible, working with industry partners who have a stake in the future of the world’s fisheries and fish farms. We want to see many examples of improvement efforts, even if the quality of those efforts varies, rather than merely a few examples of exceptionally good practice.
SFP favors this approach because we believe it will reassure the world’s largest seafood buyers that change is coming at a scale commensurate with the size of their global businesses, and hence give them the confidence to stay the course.
Our joint success over the years in key sectors has enabled our partners to make firmer and more public commitments over time. By working at this global scale, SFP have also attracted more of the supply chain to join these efforts, as the business payoffs of doing so became obvious.
For this initiative, SFP has set an interim target that, by 2020, 75% of world production in key sectors is – at a minimum – either sustainable or in a formal FIP or AIP making regular, verifiable improvements.