In identity politics, labels matter. Labels can empower, by offering words around which ideas can coalesce. Labels can serve as shorthand for particular communities or perspectives. But labels can also be restrictive, reductionist, and exclusionary. And when it comes to formalized sustainability certification schemes, which seek to label certain commodities as \u201csustainable,\u201d labeling can be similarly double-edged.<\/p>\n
Two fisheries policy experts\u2014Maria Hadjimichael and Troels Jacob Hegland, both from Aalborg University in Denmark\u2014recently published a skeptical assessment of the Marine Stewardship Council\u2019s (MSC) \u201cCertified Sustainable Seafood\u201d eco-label. In their paper<\/a>, the researchers argue\u00a0the brand\u2019s driving mentality is structurally at odds with a sustainable and equitable future.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you start putting sustainability in a box you can tick, you\u2019re going to lose out on all the ecological and social complexities that can\u2019t be detached from each other,\u201d Hadjimichael says. \u201cThe more entrenched these kinds of labels become in the way we manage the environment, the more difficult it is for society to see that this is not the way forward.\u201d<\/p>\n Top-down ecolabelling schemes like the MSC\u2019s incentivize commercial fishers\u2019 conformity to their sustainability standards, providing consumers with simple means of choosing products marked accordingly: they facilitate \u201cvoting with one\u2019s wallet.\u201d<\/p>\n But Hadjimichael says that even nonprofit labeling schemes are susceptible to the marketplace logic through which they operate, threatening to monopolize the very definition of \u201csustainability\u201d while overlooking potentially relevant factors in the process.<\/p>\n Carbon costs, for example\u2014from harvesting to shipping\u2014do not figure into the MSC\u2019s standards, Hegland says. Nor do questions of social sustainability, such as the preservation of ways of life liable to vanish under heightened industrialization. By formalizing the definition of sustainability, then, eco-labeling schemes run a risk of fostering exclusivity.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you come in with a different idea of sustainability\u2014and it might actually be more sustainable from some perspective\u2014you\u2019re up against a big, powerful organization which has a clear market interest in keeping the idea of sustainability linked to their brand,\u201d Hegland says.<\/p>\n Hadjimichael first took a critical interest in the potential problems with eco-labeling after speaking with small-scale Scottish fishermen who felt they were being squeezed out by larger bottom-trawling local competitors who had put up the cost of MSC accreditation, which typically runs from US $15,000 to $120,000, depending on magnitude and complexity, not including improvement costs. The larger players\u2019 catches, now bearing the MSC\u2019s label, could fetch higher prices in a market increasingly informed by consumers\u2019 environmental goodwill.<\/p>\n The small-scale fishermen \u201cfelt like they were actually the most sustainable fishers in the area, yet they were losing out in the name of sustainability,\u201d Hadjimichael says. \u201cIt didn\u2019t sound fair.\u201d She says it\u2019s a sentiment she\u2019s heard repeatedly since.<\/p>\n In their research, Hadjimichael and Hegland investigated how commercial fishers and other relevant actors in three disparate MSC-certified fisheries felt about the eco-label. They found that stakeholders\u2019 attitudes ranged from enthusiastic to cynical.<\/p>\n Associates of a large Australian prawn fishery, for example, had eagerly anticipated the increased market share they could garner by undergoing accreditation (despite the fact that the fishery\u2019s harvesting method yields a particularly large amount of by-catch). Many of those working within a smaller-scale Faroese saithe fishery, on the other hand, remained unconvinced that certification standards really improved the sustainability of their operations, but felt they had little choice but to seek certification in light of the label\u2019s popularity.<\/p>\n Camiel Derichs, the MSC\u2019s regional director in Europe, says that the organization \u201cisn\u2019t the silver bullet\u201d when it comes to environmental issues in fisheries. But he says the MSC has been a positive force since the World Wildlife Fund and Unilever established it in 1996.<\/p>\n Derichs says that the organization is \u201cstarting to explore social sustainability\u201d as a possible criterion for certification, and that it has given consideration toward carbon impacts, though it isn\u2019t a priority for now.<\/p>\n \u201cThe MSC\u2019s not static,\u201d Derichs says. \u201cWe have a standard that\u2019s evolving all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n Derichs notes that while the NGO cannot forcibly prescribe fisheries management strategies, it has exerted indirect pressure on policy. Some European governments, for example, have subsidized accreditations, and the organization effectively mediates between scientists, fishing companies, industry organizations and associations, and state officials.<\/p>\n Derichs also stresses that the MSC is \u201cgoing a long way to cater for small-scale developing countries\u2019 fisheries,\u201d for which, he says, the biggest hurdles to certification often involve an absence of management infrastructure, such as comprehensive catch records and coast guards. The organization\u2019s capacity-building program and its Global Fisheries Sustainability Fund (launched in 2015<\/a>) are meant to address such obstacles.<\/p>\n Still, Hadjimichael emphasizes eco-labeling schemes\u2019 inherent limitations.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a market-based tool, and in today\u2019s free market, the most vulnerable are almost always going to be left out from the system. It\u2019s something consumers need to appreciate, at least,\u201d she says. \u201cConsumers cannot leave these decisions to be taken for them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By controlling the definition of \u201csustainability,\u201d eco-labeling schemes could do harm as well as good.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":12884,"menu_order":0,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"acf":{"hero_video_url":null,"hero_video_caption":"","deck":"By controlling the definition of \u201csustainability,\u201d eco-labeling schemes could do harm as well as good.","authors_group":[{"by_group":"by","contributors_group":[15474]}],"word_count_override":"","podbean1":"","podbean2":"","redirect":"","geolocation":null,"related":[16141,16839],"twitterimage":18721,"facebookimage":18722,"twitterdescription":"","edited":"","factchecked":"","code":"","no_old_story_flag":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/16843"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/custom_news"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/16843\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34359,"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/16843\/revisions\/34359"}],"acf:post":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article-short\/16839"},{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/features\/16141"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}