100% FISH
How Smart Seafood Companies Make Better Use of Resources
by Thor Sigfusson, PhD,
Iceland Ocean Cluster
An excerpt from “100% Fish”. Find the full book at 100fishbook.com.
“The seafood industry has an opportunity to take the lead in sustainability and profitability in the global food space. To achieve this, waste must be designed out of the system. Today, the seafood industry wastes over 10 million metric tons of perfectly good cut-offs of the fish. There is work to do!” says Dr. Thór Sigfússon, founder of the Iceland Ocean Cluster, in his latest book “100% Fish: How Smart Seafood Companies Make Better Use of Resources.”
Towards a Sustainable Seafood Industry
Growing concerns over climate change and the over-consumption of finite resources are contributing to an increasing demand for transition to a more sustainable society. The world’s resource consumption is less than 10% circular. In other words, 90% of the products we make eventually end up in a dumpster or as landfill. There is a vast gap here, and even though the importance of reusing is well received by the general public and industry, not enough progress is being made. In the United Kingdom alone, the annual 6 million tonnes of food waste could have been the equivalent of 15 billion meals, and this waste is associated with more than 25 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions.
“The focus in the seafood sustainability discussion should always be on the journey; the opportunities to continuously do better.”
Around 12% of the global population, approximately one billion people, depend on the annual 200 million tonnes of fish from aquaculture and capture fish production. The seafood industry has therefore a significant role to play in providing healthy proteins and valuable nutrients for the world. This industry now has the potential to become a role model in building a more sustainable future, combating climate change by eliminating waste and pollution throughout the whole value chain from harvest and catch to the end customer, while increasing the circularity of products and materials as much as possible. We need to go round and round and round with our products!
The purpose of this book is a tour of some of the world’s smartest seafood companies and innovating start-ups that have made sustainability a key aim; companies that have shown real leadership and made demonstrable progress in going beyond the sustainability platitudes, and in constantly searching for ways to do better. Sustainability is not a race in which there’s a finishing line to be crossed, with bystanders cheering the winner. The focus in the seafood sustainability discussion should always be on the journey; the opportunities to continuously do better.
The increasing interest in environmental issues has resulted in the appearance of numerous expressions that refer to aspects of the climate change challenge. Terms are tossed around like eco-friendly, greenwashing, mitigation of climate change, climate crisis, global warming, carbon free and carbon neutral, CO² emission and CO² footprint, circularity, and so on. And this language can be overwhelming.
This is a particular language relating to climate change. It has sometimes occurred to me that this deluge of jargon has served to complicate matters, not least for smaller companies that don’t have the resources their larger counterparts have to employ a dedicated climate team. I’m not setting out to make definitions here or expecting the reader to be familiar with every expression in circulation around the climate change debate. All these concepts have their uses, but in this book I will mainly emphasize the words sustainability and circularity.
First, let’s define the concept of sustainability. The sustainability concept encompasses all the factors relating to responsible management under which managers seek to create long-term value by taking into consideration the interlinked relationships and harmonies between a company and the ecological, social and economic environment around it. This holistic approach is also the best way to foster a company’s longevity and for the company to become an active participant in the circular economy.
Compared to many other industries, seafood is a relative newcomer into the sustainable “space”. Agriculture was already in the mid-20th century being described as a sustainable system by Lord Northbourn in his 1940 book “Look to the Land.” Northbourn used the term to describe systems of agriculture that focused on the farm as a dynamic, living, balanced, organic whole, or an organism. Going even further back, forty-seven years before coal and steam came to revolutionise Western economies, at the start of the 18th century, forests were disappearing from Europe at alarming rates to keep up with the demands of shipbuilding. Threatened by the real possibility of the collapse of
the German forestry industry, foresters coined the term sustainability to denote the practice of maintaining a balance between the rate at which mature trees were harvested and saplings planted.
At that point in time, the considered view was that the oceans contained inexhaustible volumes of fish and this attitude has undoubtedly been a factor in the absence until recently of any mention of sustainability within fisheries. This awareness is increasingly prevalent across the seafood sector, and sustainability and circularity in their most holistic forms are becoming a serious presence in the modern seafood industry.
Sustainability of seafood was first seriously addressed in the mid-1990s alongside indications of declining global fish stocks. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reported in 1997 that 60% of major fish stocks were reaching or had already reached high exploitation levels and action was needed. The warning was to either halt the increase in fishing capacity or to rehabilitate damaged resources. In the 1990s the European Union also embarked on controversial efforts to slim down the fishing fleet with its first large-scale decommissioning schemes.
These serious indicators of decline and a lack of action by governments led to various actions and collaboration among a wide range of stakeholders in and around the seafood industry. These were players who had previously rarely met and networked, suddenly showing interest in working together. These included fishing operators, NGOs, retailers, chefs, consumer groups and verification experts. Soon afterwards, the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) emerged, a venture taken by organisations outside of government. We’ll return to the MSC’s story later in this book.
Seafood companies are becoming aware of the need to continuously take measures to protect natural resources, while still keeping their businesses valuable and profitable. This demands new thinking and new solutions, in which the focus is on day-today practice that is organised and performed more sustainably.
One challenge that runs through the entire debate relating to the environment and sustainability is that individual companies interpret sustainability in their own ways. This complicates matters, not least as there is a need for some overarching definitions of what sustainability is (and is not) in relation to seafood. The point is that we need sustainability to be a philosophy at a fundamental level in company policy and culture, and not just a static term or a stamp.
Various players in the seafood value chain assume that the sustainability stamp means there is no need for further improvement — which is practically never the case. Sustainability should never be treated as a buzzword. Instead, it should be seen as a tool or a continual process that is a constant fundamental element in any seafood company’s culture. A sustainability strategy has to carry impact and meaning, and must encourage people to continuously do and learn more.
The other term used in this book is the circular economy, which refers to industrial processes and economic activities that are restorative or regenerative by design. A circular economy enables resources used in such processes and activities to maintain their highest value for as long as possible. The aim is to eliminate waste. The opposite of the circular economy is the linear economy in which resources are extracted, made into products, and then become waste. “A circular economy reduces material use, redesigns materials to be less resource intensive, and recaptures “waste” as a resource to manufacture new materials and products.”
“The seafood industry has an opportunity to take the lead
in sustainability and profitability in the global food space”
The main point here is that as our planet prepares for its population to reach 10 billion by the year 2050, it is essential that the products and materials we use retain their value for as long as possible and that we minimise the generation of waste. This will both support resource security and help to protect the planet.
The circular economy concept currently emerging within the sustainability field is collaborative in its nature and I believe it holds the potential for radical solutions for a sustainable seafood industry — both for fisheries and aquaculture. Attitudes in the fishing industry have changed significantly in recent decades and there is an opportunity to take even bolder steps. Ray Hilborn, a thought-leader in natural resource management and conservation, has related that in the 1970s a US fisher told him:
My job is to catch as many fish as possible,
your job is to keep me from catching too many.
I asked Ray if he had become aware of this attitude changing. He replied that in the fisheries sectors he is most familiar with, the US, Canada, New Zealand and Australia, the whole management structure has improved and as a result, that attitude has changed enormously, and the fishing industry accepts that their job is to help sustain the fisheries and maintain their reputation as a sustainable source of food. The seafood industry has an opportunity to take the lead in sustainability and profitability in the global food space. Seafood has tremendous potential to help meet the protein needs of a growing world population. Low carbon emission protein helps in the fight against climate change and ensures food security. Sustainability and circularity are therefore good for the seafood industry, people and the environment.
If it is to take this lead, the seafood industry has to demonstrate a deeper commitment to maintaining dialogue and relationships with stakeholders. Some fishing operators have mistakenly believed that associations should be their sole voice. These associations are doing their best, but companies need to keep this dialogue open with a larger group of stakeholders. This applies not only to the larger seafood companies, but also the smaller ones which sometimes are of even greater interest to stakeholders as these hitherto had no strong and independent voices on their own.
Given the growing interest in seafood sustainability, one could rightly conclude that the role of stakeholders has never been stronger in the seafood industry. The primary stakeholders in a typical corporation are its investors, employees, customers, and suppliers. All these stakeholders can have a role to play. But in an industry that has such a close relationship with natural resources, various environmental groups and governments are stakeholders, and that must be considered. These two last entities play a crucial part in the economic, social, environmental, and regulatory frameworks in which the seafood industry thrives. Environmental groups have stronger role to play in seafood as interest in a “pure” food industry grows. Government is also a central stakeholder, responsible for controlling regulatory frameworks and defining how seafood companies operate. Smart seafood companies need to continually interact with and learn from key stakeholders. Good relationships with stakeholders can minimise the risk of conflicts and increase trust. One of the ways to do this is to open a better dialogue with media — local or national — and to open their access to information about operational and environmental issues and challenges.
Seafood production has been through a steep development process with the growth of aquaculture, which is frequently highly sophisticated and science-based, as well as more transparent. This has a considerable effect on the wild catch sector, resulting in a greater level of dialogue between seafood companies and key stakeholders.
I have been advocating for years for seafood companies to rethink processing from the standpoint of making better use of the fantastic resources that the marine environment offers. We have seen the reports of the colossal waste of protein as a large proportion of each fish ends up back in the sea or as landfill; as much as 50%. It is imperative to aim for 100% usage. The challenge is that improving the usage of catches isn’t going to happen unless the concepts of sustainability and circularity become core values of those companies and permeate their activities. To my mind, a 100% company must make these two concepts central aims. The seafood industry can use the ideology behind sustainability and circular economy to build an image of a zero-waste food business that has designed out waste and pollution and supported the regeneration of natural marine ecosystems. Greater circularity in the seafood industry provides an opportunity to enhance its reputation. Showcasing a low-emission seafood sector can strengthen the industry as a leader in sustainability and responsible protein provision. At the same time, transitioning to renewable energy and circularity in the whole value chain can lead to a reduction in operating costs missing full stop…
…read more at 100fishbook.com.
“Enhancing a sustainability and circularity strategy among seafood companies both helps the environment and strengthens competitiveness.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dr. Thor Sigfússon is an Icelandic entrepreneur, author and speaker. He is globally recognized as an authority in the field of seafood startups and innovation. He has written seven books on topics as wide-ranging as business internationalization and salmon. Sigfússon is the founder and chairman of Iceland Ocean Cluster and The Ocean Cluster House, both of which have become global models for best practices in new seafood ecosystems. Through the IOC’s example and outreach efforts, the Ocean Cluster Network is expanding globally, with sister clusters in the United States. It also helps support cluster initiatives in countries around the globe.
Paperback, 200 Pages
Publisher: Leete’s Island Books
Release date: September 2023
English
Formats: Trade Paper, Hard Cover, EPub
Trade Paper ISBN: 978–0918172–89–1
