Summary
This report led by Canadian seafood sector membership organization SeaChoice, summarises two impact reports assessing MSC and ASC in Canada. The authors have looked at Public Certification Reports and Annual Surveillance Reports from MSC’s ten years in Canada and ASC’s two, analysing fishery and farm progress towards certification requirements, and considering audit rigour as well as the scale and influence of stakeholder engagement. They conclude that MSC has played an important role in advancing regulatory policy and encouraging research in the area, however they raise concerns over apparent lack of continued improvement after certification and recommend raising the MSC Standard requirements to drive further change. Whilst data on ASC is limited, the authors have identified some departures from the Standard, recommending ASC address these early on to avoid undermining their credibility.