Sustainable seafood certification increasingly includes animal welfare as a dimension alongside environmental sustainability.
Sustainable seafood certification has historically focused on environmental outcomes — stock levels, bycatch, habitat impacts — without addressing the welfare of the individual fish caught or farmed. The integration of welfare criteria into sustainability standards represents an important development that broadens the definition of what counts as responsible seafood production. Consumers who value both sustainability and welfare are increasingly served by certification programs that address both dimensions, though the pace of welfare integration into major certification systems has been slower than welfare advocates would like.