Assessment Methods
FishWise seafood recommendations provide easy-to-use information about the environmental and health effects of seafood purchasing. In many of our retailer partnerships, a straightforward traffic light system is used to show that green products represent the best environmental choice, yellow indicates a good alternative but still a need for caution, while red products are unsustainable. In addition, health advisories suggest the number of meals that can be safely consumed by women, children, and men in per week.
Our assessment methods use acclaimed criteria, such as those designed by the Monterey Bay Aquarium and Environmental Defense Fund (EDF). These methods are used by most organizations in the reputable Conservation Alliance for Sustainable Seafood. Methods for evaluating environmental sustainability that are shared between FishWise and the Monterey Bay Aquarium use a series of decision rules to evaluate five main impacts of capture fisheries and aquaculture operations. These methods can be applied broadly across marine and aquatic systems on species ranging from shellfish to crustaceans to finfish.
FishWise also promotes human health advisories developed by the EDF that provide both the positive and negative effects of consuming seafood. Our shared health advisories with EDF draw on data from more than 200 government databases and scientific studies on seafood contaminants that include mercury, PCBs, dioxins and pesticides. Health recommendations use methods that account for body size and meal portion size.
At FishWise we support third-party certification, and encourage our members to supply certified Best Choice (green-ranked) products. Third-party certifications evaluate products against standards that can be designed to assure factors ranging from food safety to social responsibility. Third-party certification is an important tool for addressing issues of equity in free markets and assures consumers of the quality of their purchase, providing the option to use buying power to mobilize social and environmental change.
How we assess:
Assessing Capture Fisheries
FishWise and the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch program use five sustainability criteria to evaluate capture fisheries and develop a seafood recommendation:
- Species: Abundance, growth rate, age at maturity and longevity of a stock are examples of factors that determine health and inherent vulnerability
- Ecology: The effect of fishing practices on habitats and ecosytems and the bycatch associated with different gear types determine sustainability
- Management: Effective governance via regulations, monitoring and enforcement is important for maintaining healthy fish stocks.
- Social: Socially responsible labor conditions and community interactions are important indicators of industry sustainability.
- Resource Use: Monitoring and reducing the seafood industry’s energy use and emissions is becoming a key sustainability consideration.
For environmental considerations (species, ecology and management), we support the Monterey Bay Aquarium methodology. Each criterion has:
- Primary factors to evaluate and rank
- Secondary factors to evaluate and rank
- Evaluation guidelines to synthesize these factors
- A resulting color rank for that criterion
Once a green, yellow or red rank has been assigned to each criterion, an overall seafood recommendation is assigned, based on the ranks from all of the five criteria:
- A species receives an overall recommendation of "Best Choice" if it has three or more green criteria and none of the remaining criteria are red.
- A species receives a recommendation of "Good Alternative" if criteria average to yellow or- A species receives a recommendation of "Unsustainable" if:
Assessing Aquaculture
FishWise and the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch program use five sustainability criteria to evaluate aquaculture operations and develop a seafood recommendation.
- Species: Different species vary in their requirements of marine and terrestrial resources during their production, such as the use of wild fish for feed.
-
Ecology: All aquaculture operations have associated but varied risks of escapement, disease transfer, pollution and biodiversity impacts.
- Management: Respect for regulations and enforcement, coupled with active monitoring and evaluation should occur on farms and via government.
- Social: Socially responsible labor conditions and community interactions are important indicators of industry sustainability.
- Resource Use: Monitoring and reducing the seafood industry’s energy use and emissions is becoming a key sustainability consideration.
For environmental considerations (species, ecology and management), we support the Monterey Bay Aquarium methodology. Each criterion has:
- Primary factors to evaluate and rank
- Secondary factors to evaluate and rank
- Evaluation guidelines to synthesize these factors
- A resulting color rank for that criterion
Once a green, yellow or red rank has been assigned to each criterion, an overall seafood recommendation is assigned, based on the ranks from all of the five criteria:
- A species receives an overall recommendation of "Best Choice" if it has three or more green criteria and the remaining criteria are not red.
- A species receives a recommendation of "Good Alternative" if criteria average to yellow or:- A species receives a recommendation of "Unsustainable" if it has a total of two or more red criteria or:
For a more comprehensive look at the environmental aquaculture assessment methodology, click here.
Health
Scientists at the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) designate a type of fish a Health Concern if eating that fish once per week (roughly the U.S. average consumption level) poses an unacceptable health risk according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Any fish designated a Health Concern for adults is, by default, also a Health Concern for children.
Health Concerns are evaluated most often for mercury and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), which are regularly monitored by U.S. government agencies. Recommendations are also presented for dioxins and pesticides, although government information is more difficult to obtain for these contaminants as they receive less frequent monitoring.
The EDF's advisories are designed to protect children and women of childbearing age, who are particularly vulnerable to the toxic effects mercury. Therefore, consumption advice generally errs on the side of safety for men and older women. PCBs, dioxins are pesticides are neurotoxins, and are known carcinogens. EDF's advisories correspond to cancer risks from these chemicals, in order to provide the most protective advice for both adults and children.
Recommendations are determined based on two main factors:
- the average body size of women (144 lbs) and men (172 lbs) assumed
- the average size of seafood portion (6 oz for women and 8 oz for men)
For more on the health risks associated with seafood, click here.
Third Party Certification
FishWise supports the sale of certified products that are Best Choices (green ranked), by our producer, distributor and retail partners. The diversity of standards used in evaluating fisheries and aquaculture operations under different certification schemes means that FishWise is careful to evaluate and rank products on a case-by-case basis under the criteria outlined above.
We support and promote the scientifically defensible standards for seafood that have been developed, or are under development, by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). FishWise bases this support on their use of rigorous science, quantifiable performance-based standards, and unprecedented multi-stakeholder engagement.
The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) was initially developed in part by the WWF and is now an independent nonprofit organization that operates an environmental standard for certifying sustainable and well managed wild-capture fisheries. The MSC eco-label on a seafood product is an assurance that the source fishery has been certified to the MSC's standard for sustainability. Click here for more information about the MSC standard and MSC-certified seafood.
Additionally, the WWF is facilitating the development of standards by the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) to certify a range of farm-raised species. Click here to learn more about FishWise involvement in developing ASC certifications.
We encourage our partners to learn more about the standards used to certify seafood product:
- Wild Capture Fisheries (Marine Stewardship Council)
- Aquaculture (WWF's nascent Aquaculture Stewardship Council, GAA, GlobalGAP, AquaGAP)
- Food Safety (SQF)
- Organics (Naturland)
