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5.2 Sustainable fishing
How does the company establish policies on the purchase of sustainable fish and ensure correct information to the consumer?
This metric is part of Eticonsum's research study on the evaluation of companies in the Retail Food sector on environmental, social and ethical issues.
Eticonsum is a non-profit market research agency specialising in ESG (environment, social, governance) corporate performance applied to consumer insights.
We research and analyse the ethical market in the FMCG sector and evaluate the environmental and social performance of companies in order to help both conscious consumers to decide according to their values and companies to compete on ethical reputation.
With this metric we aim to publicise and compare the policies adopted by the main distributors in Spain regarding the responsible purchasing and marketing of their fish and aquaculture products and their efforts in certification, labelling, legislative compliance, non-commercialisation of illegal fishing, no conflicting fish and the promotion of sustainable fishing.
Up to 20% of the world's fisheries are illegal, according to the United Nations (UN), which negatively affects the marine ecosystem. Moreover, 33% of the world's fish stocks are overfished.
According to this organisation, sustainable fishing must be carried out at a level that allows it to continue indefinitely. To this it adds that "fishing operations must be carried out with care, so that other species and habitats within the ecosystem remain in good condition".
According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), three quarters of the world's fish stocks are fully exploited or overfished; 88% of EU stocks are overfished, compared to a global average of 25%. Moreover, worldwide, stocks of large predators such as cod, tuna and swordfish have declined by 90%, mainly due to overfishing.
In Spain, consumers spend more than 5.6 billion euros annually on fish products, almost 70% in supermarkets and hypermarkets, as large supermarkets account for the majority of fish sales compared to small fishmongers.
The power of the large distributors, by acquiring and marketing the majority of fish products in Spain, puts them in a very important strategic position to influence the fishing industry.
Public, political and corporate recognition of the threat that unsustainable fishing poses to the marine environment has meant that supermarkets have made great strides in sourcing sustainable fish. Even so, many of the species that can currently be found on the fish counters of Spanish supermarkets, whether fresh, frozen or canned, continue to come, for the most part, from overexploited stocks or from catches that use fishing methods that are highly destructive to the marine environment.
Eticonsum is a non-profit market research agency specialising in ESG (environment, social, governance) corporate performance applied to consumer insights.
We research and analyse the ethical market in the FMCG sector and evaluate the environmental and social performance of companies in order to help both conscious consumers to decide according to their values and companies to compete on ethical reputation.
With this metric we aim to publicise and compare the policies adopted by the main distributors in Spain regarding the responsible purchasing and marketing of their fish and aquaculture products and their efforts in certification, labelling, legislative compliance, non-commercialisation of illegal fishing, no conflicting fish and the promotion of sustainable fishing.
Up to 20% of the world's fisheries are illegal, according to the United Nations (UN), which negatively affects the marine ecosystem. Moreover, 33% of the world's fish stocks are overfished.
According to this organisation, sustainable fishing must be carried out at a level that allows it to continue indefinitely. To this it adds that "fishing operations must be carried out with care, so that other species and habitats within the ecosystem remain in good condition".
According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), three quarters of the world's fish stocks are fully exploited or overfished; 88% of EU stocks are overfished, compared to a global average of 25%. Moreover, worldwide, stocks of large predators such as cod, tuna and swordfish have declined by 90%, mainly due to overfishing.
In Spain, consumers spend more than 5.6 billion euros annually on fish products, almost 70% in supermarkets and hypermarkets, as large supermarkets account for the majority of fish sales compared to small fishmongers.
The power of the large distributors, by acquiring and marketing the majority of fish products in Spain, puts them in a very important strategic position to influence the fishing industry.
Public, political and corporate recognition of the threat that unsustainable fishing poses to the marine environment has meant that supermarkets have made great strides in sourcing sustainable fish. Even so, many of the species that can currently be found on the fish counters of Spanish supermarkets, whether fresh, frozen or canned, continue to come, for the most part, from overexploited stocks or from catches that use fishing methods that are highly destructive to the marine environment.