Our View on The MSC
We don’t support the MSC. In fact, we have been active in many campaigns to reform and improve the MSC, especially the On the Hook campaign and Make Stewardship Count.
Our main gripe is essentially around the idea of the MSC as a high or the highest standard in sustainable seafood. We regard the MSC as an overly-complex improvement scheme which has certified many fisheries that should not have been certified in the first place and that has monopolised the definition of sustainability at the expense of other fisheries. This is particularly unfair, unjust and unsustainable if and when those other fisheries are small scale artisan fisheries which for a number of reasons are not certified.
We were the first canned fish brand in the world to be certified MSC but we left because we felt an increasing number of certifications were for fisheries and methods that could not be deemed sustainable. We also felt that there was a deliberate crowding out of alternative viewpoints and approaches by MSC supporters trying to impose a dominant narrative which worked in favour of industrial supply chains and at the expense of small-scale fisheries.
For us the MSC is the chief expression of the stock-centric approach which focusses overtly on stock and management concerns which are essentially a problem with the governance system but was actually quite weak on individual sourcing choices which are in the remit of individual companies.
Our founder, Charles Redfern was an expert witness in the House of Parliament’s investigation of the MSC in September 2018. Many NGO’s and independent experts submitted critical statements to the inquiry. In October 2022, after 4 years of deliberations and “the most extensive review” in its history, the MSC announced Version 3 of its standards describing them as stronger and better that before with substantial improvements across the board. It in effect was accepting a large number of the criticisms made but this upgrade to the standards would take up to 2030 to be applied everywhere – and has since been diluted as a result of pressure from fisheries! It is impossible now to say that the MSC is the highest point of sustainability and in fact the language used by the MSC has partly shifted towards a “theory of change” description.
If the MSC and MSC supporters described the program as essentially an improvement project for industrial fisheries we would be delighted and supportive. We like any and all improvement initiatives. We particularly like all the audit documentation and analysis which the MSC process makes available on its website in one place. We do source from low risk MSC certified fisheries that use low-impact and highly targeted methods but we choose not to advertise the MSC logo on those products. For us NOT to have gone into opposition against the MSC would have been far easier: it would have meant buying cheaper and opened doors that were slammed in our face. No other brand that we know of has made this type of stand or shown this level of commitment to improving the MSC standards and approach.