The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) programme: a failed theory of change or a scam?

From an economic perspective, the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) is a true success story: established in 1997 and having certified a first fishery in 2000, it grew into a ‘money-making machine’ in only two decades, generating an annual turnover of ￡29 million and hording an impressive ￡40 million in assets by the end of 2022. The question is, does it deserve to be applauded? Far from it, as I will explain in continuation. ?

In its theory of change published in 2011, the MSC seeks to “drive positive environmental change by harnessing market demand.“[1] The concept seems quite simple: certifying fisheries as ‘sustainable’ and providing privileged market access for products originating from these fisheries, the MSC promises to drive improvements in fisheries with the support of consumers paying the extra for products carrying a logo with the ‘blue tick’. What most consumers are not aware of is that they are being cheated in multiple ways. For one, there is the already well-known fact that the MSC standard does not cover key sustainability aspects such as social equity, climate impacts, or animal welfare. More disturbing is the fact that fisheries do not even need to meet the standard, when getting certified. A fishery can sell their products carrying an MSC logo based on the promise that it might eventually meet the standard in years to come. This means that literally every fishery can be MSC certified, provided it does not use dynamite nor poison, and it can afford to pay the rather high certification costs. As Bloom Association illustrated in a report called ‘The Death Label’, the trick with the ‘conditional certification’ has contributed to almost exponential growth in certified fisheries and products under MSC in recent years.

Not that the number of certified fisheries is a problem as such. What is disturbing is the fact that in contrast to its theory of change, the MSC programme has not contributed to improve ocean health over the years. In fact, the opposite is true and part of it can be attributed to the MSC. Whereas the first certified fishery under the programme was a small-scale lobster fishery in Australia using traps, today the MSC mostly certifies huge industrial fleets operating with highly destructive fishing methods such as bottom trawls, hydraulic dredges, and purse-seine nets using thousands of drifting FADs to attract fish with highly sophisticated techniques. These fishing methods are associated with significant habitat destruction and biodiversity loss. Not that there is a secret about it: many of the fisheries under the MSC programme indeed report significant amounts of unwanted by-catch, the killing of millions of sharks, dolphins, turtles, albatrosses, and other fish, birds, and mammals, and habitat destruction even in marine protected areas (MPAs). Most of this reckless behaviour is well-documented. The point is that it doesn’t matter to MSC, as long as there is the ‘hypothetical hope’ that biodiversity and habitat losses may eventually recover in the far future, after fishing operations will potentially have stopped for decades.

The result is that today, the fishing industry is operating as reckless or worse than it did twenty years ago, with the difference that nowadays the largest industrial fleets supplying western markets are ‘certified sustainable’. Not so small-scale fisheries, which are largely excluded from the MSC programme. From a justice perspective, the MSC has helped to drive small-scale fisheries out of important markets, resulting in fishing communities struggling with access to oceans and fish. All this has been possible thanks to the generous support of WWF, large philanthropies, and businesses trading and selling fish, including retail companies, food services, and restaurants. They have contributed to establish and solidify a monopoly for the MSC as a fishery certification programme. Many of the large organisations involved in this cynical ecocide have sustainability policies that include climate targets, biodiversity protection, and social equity. In addition, many report their sustainability efforts according to the GRI standard, which requires companies to engage with stakeholders and account for the negative impacts that result from their business operations. While publishing colourful sustainability reports, the affected companies continue to sell MSC certified products, thus ignoring calls for a reform. Instead, they continue subsidizing the reckless plundering of our oceans. Most grotesque is the fact that even consumers wanting to do the right thing are being fooled into supporting this wilful circle of destruction. The icing on the cake: while MSC has found a way to obtain a tax exemption for its millions earned as commercial income, allowing the programme to reward its top executives with salaries above $200,000 per year, consumers pay their share in this ugly business after being deducted income taxes from their earnings. So much for social equity!

Luckily, the wind is turning. Several class action lawsuits in the USA involving the MSC standard have demonstrated that sustainability claims based in an MSC certification are not rightful. In the European Union, the recent Green Claims Directive will change how companies can advertise environmental and sustainability claims. Greenpeace Denmark has already placed a formal complaint about the misleading use of the word 'sustainable' in the marketing of MSC-certified fish. Allegations of human rights abuses in MSC value chains have been considered in a public hearing in the US Congress[2]. Even the MSC’s founder and long-time supporter WWF has moved away from recommending all MSC certified fisheries as a sustainable choice. Although way too late, the operational and regulatory scope for sustainability claims is changing. With it, the pressure for true accountability is increasing for businesses worldwide.

Coming back to the question about the theory of change, one can’t help to think that in the end it doesn’t matter whether we consider the MSC programme another example of a ‘failed theory of change’ or simply ‘a scam’. More important is the fact that actors involved in this big-time hypocrisy need to act now! In the words of Bloom,

“Seafood retailers and caterers are left with only one choice: to distance themselves from this label and engage in a real, serious transformation of their supply chains to make them truly sustainable. They owe it to the environment as well as to citizens, who rightly demand to consume products that did not destroy nature.”

[1] Marine Stewardship Council (2011). Harnessing Market Forces for Positive Environmental Change. Theory of Change.

[2] Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) hearing on the Chinese forced labor issue and seafood