Marine Stewardship Council

The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) is the world’s largest seafood certification scheme. Its blue tick appears on thousands of seafood products and now covers around 14% of global fish landings.¹ It was set up to try and prevent overfishing so that aquatic populations are not wiped out. But there are many problems with this scheme.

The MSC does not regulate fisheries itself. Instead, fisheries pay independent auditing companies to assess them against MSC standards. If they pass, they can market their catch using the MSC label and retailers can advertise the product as “sustainable seafood.” We would argue this system creates a blatant conflict of interest, since fisheries pay up to hundreds of thousands of dollars for certification, and retailers pay to use the label.²

The standards are designed to ensure fish stocks remain viable and fisheries are managed responsibly. But they do not eliminate many of the most disturbing impacts of industrial fishing. Certified fisheries still use equipment that results in “bycatch” which is the inevitable capture of non-target animals such as dolphins, sharks, turtles, and seabirds.³

Investigations have documented incidents where MSC-certified vessels set nets around school of tuna that are feeding alongside whales and dolphins, trapping the animals inside. In some cases dolphins were caught and died in the nets.⁴

Other certified fisheries have been found entangling endangered species such as North Atlantic right whales in fishing gear with fatal consequences.⁵ There are fewer than 400 right whales left.

The MSC scheme has also faced controversy over certifying large-scale industrial fisheries, including Antarctic krill operations, that remove a key food source for whales, seals, and penguins. Conservation groups argue that the certification ignores worsening ecosystem pressures and climate impacts.⁶

The MSC label does not mean fishing has become harmless or humane. It means the fishery has met a set of management criteria that allow the industry to keep operating and profiting.

Consumers see a reassuring blue tick. Retailers get a powerful sustainability claim for their packaging. And the global machinery of industrial fishing carries on.