FisheryProgress was initially designed as a tool for reporting on environmental improvements in FIPs. However, in recent years, investigations by NGOs and journalists have brought to light the urgent need to ensure human rights are protected in fisheries. That spurred a conversation among stakeholders in the sustainable seafood movement about how to address social responsibility in FIPs. Around the same time in 2019, FisheryProgress received a report of forced labor in a FIP reporting on FisheryProgress. Those discussions and the report made it clear that failing to include human rights and labor information on FisheryProgress’ website presented a risk to fishers and also risked damaging the trust that users have in the website.
FisheryProgress believes that environmental sustainability in fisheries is not possible without ensuring that the human rights of those who work in them are respected. We recognize that prevention and mitigation of human rights abuses in seafood supply chains ultimately requires a systemic approach - but we believe the perfect cannot be the enemy of the good. FIPs must take immediate steps to begin addressing their human rights risks, and buyers must make this expectation clear to FIPs they source from and support improvement efforts. This increased transparency around social and human rights commitments, risks, and improvement efforts can support and contribute to broader systemic change.
The FisheryProgress Human Rights and Social Responsibility Policy, first released in May 2021 and updated in December 2022, outlines our expectations of FIPs reporting on FisheryProgress. The objectives of the policy are to help FIPs identify and reduce the risk of human and labor rights abuses in their supply chains, and to increase transparency around efforts to address human and labor rights risks, focusing on the harvest stage of supply chains. FisheryProgress reviews the information FIPs submit to determine whether the information submitted effectively meets the site’s requirements, and encourages seafood buyers to review the social responsibility information on the site as part of their own human rights due diligence efforts to assess whether FIPs align with their companies’ requirements.
You can learn more about the policy and supporting resources by reviewing the below links.
- Policy Documents - information on our approach to social responsibility, including the Human Rights and Social Responsibility Policy
- Social Responsibility Assessment Tool (SRA) - an overview of the SRA, the tool used as the framework for FIPs to report on social performance on FisheryProgress
- Resources for Social Responsibility - a selection of FisheryProgress and external resources that FIPs can leverage in support of their social responsibility efforts
Want to see a list of FIPs that have completed one or more of the new human rights and social responsibility reporting requirements? Click here.