Sea Pact- My Special Place for Sustainability

Have you heard of Sea Pact? It is a coalition of like-minded, progressive North American seafood companies that engage in a range of coordinated activities that promote positive change for the world’s oceans. There are ten member companies including my company, Stavis Seafoods. With the help of New Venture Funds, we act as a 501(c)3 nonprofit. We’re also a member of the Conservation Alliance for Seafood Solutions. If you want more background about Sea Pact visit our website, www.seapact.org. This post is about why Sea Pact is special to me and its unique place in the sustainable/responsible field.              

I always call Sea Pact a full contact sport. Yes, we all contribute money annually which we use to fund grant requests, but this is not an “I gave at the office” model.  We’ve kept our membership small and limited as we consider passion and commitment to our cause the tie that binds us. We’re students as we listen to our environmental consultants, Sustainable Fisheries Partnership, Ocean Outcomes, and Fishwise. I’d like to thing that our consultative partners get insight as to the value that mid supply chain industry players bring to the process- we see things from the water’s edge so to speak.

We’ve learned how to evaluate Fishery Improvement Projects through a vetting process that has each of us doing direct research on some of the grant requests so we can either present, provide supporting opinions, or discuss each of the 30+ applications we consider for funding at each annual meeting. We vote in heats until we can narrow the requests down to the funds available.  We can't finish the meeting until we get to agreement, so sometimes those meetings run quite long. You really get to know, like and respect people when you work through difficult decisions with them; all of my industry colleagues who are working in that room on a precompetitive basis are extraordinary in capability and dedication. 

As time has gone on our scope expands. Industry and the greater community ask our opinions on a broad range of issues. We saw an early draft of the heart breaking "Ghost Fleet" movie and discussed how to best connect with the industry on this issue. We also saw the RISE (Roadmap to Improve Seafood Ethics) website as it was being developed. We advocate for actions based on our experience and insights that come from our unique vantage point in the supply chain. We can only do this because of a shared vision and value system. I feel so lucky to be part of something as special as this!