Sustainable Seafood and Animal Welfare: Connecting Two Agendas

Sustainable seafood certification has historically focused on environmental impacts rather than fish welfare. Integrating welfare into sustainability frameworks would improve outcomes for billions of individual fish.

Key Facts

The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certifies sustainable wild-catch fisheries for environmental standards only
The Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) has begun incorporating welfare requirements in some standards
An estimated 1-2.3 trillion wild fish are caught annually with essentially no welfare considerations
Sustainable fishing methods like pole-and-line tuna cause significantly less bycatch and wildlife harm
Organic aquaculture standards typically include welfare requirements alongside environmental ones

Welfare Considerations

Sustainability and welfare are not the same agenda, but they are aligned. Methods that reduce bycatch, use less harmful gear, and manage fish populations carefully also tend to reduce the number of fish killed accidentally and the welfare harms of capture. Integrating welfare considerations into sustainability certification would leverage an existing framework with strong market penetration to drive welfare improvements at scale. The welfare of individual fish caught in sustainable fisheries has been largely invisible, but with growing evidence of fish sentience, that invisibility is becoming ethically untenable.

What You Can Do

Choose MSC or ASC certified seafood as a baseline for environmental responsibility
Advocate for MSC and ASC to incorporate fish welfare requirements in their standards
Support pole-and-line caught tuna and similar low-bycatch methods
Donate to fish welfare organisations working to integrate welfare into sustainability frameworks
Engage with sustainable seafood campaigns to raise the welfare dimension alongside environmental goals