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Marine Stewardship Council
The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) is a non-profit organisation which aims to set standards for sustainable fishing. Fisheries that wish to demonstrate they are well-managed and sustainable compared to the MSC's standards are assessed by a team of Conformity Assessment Bodies (CABs).
The mission of the MSC is to use its ecolabel, for which the MSC receives royalties for licensing it to products, and fishery certification program to recognise and reward sustainable fishing practices.
The MSC has faced criticism in the past, mainly centering on its close ties to the fishing industry and conflict of interest stemming from royalties received by the industry for its certification label.
A study commissioned and funded by MSC found that MSC-certified fisheries show improvements that deliver benefits to the marine environment. Benefits included: increased stocks; improved management of stocks; reduced bycatch; expansion of environmentally protected areas; and increased knowledge about ecosystem impacts amongst fishers.
The MSC was founded in 1996, inspired by the Grand Banks cod fishery collapse. In 1999 it became independent of its founding partners, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and Unilever. MSC has a staff of around 140 spread across the headquarters in London, regional offices in London, Seattle, Singapore and Sydney, and local offices in Edinburgh, Berlin, The Hague, Paris, Cape Town, Tokyo, Reykjavik, and the Baltic region.
Fisheries that want certification and to use the ecolabel pay US$20,000 to more than $100,000 to an independent, for-profit contractor that assesses the fishery against the MSC standard and determines whether to recommend certification. The assessors are independently accredited to perform MSC assessments by Accreditation Services International (ASI). After certification, fisheries undergo annual audits costing $75,000 per audit and are recertified every five years.
As of March 2019[update], the use of DNA barcoding by the MSC has reduced species mislabelling (sometimes done fraudulently) to less than 1% among covered products, compared to the sector average of roughly 30%.
The MSC is a registered charity and non-profit organisation and depends on various sources of funding. From 1 April 2011 to 31 March 2012, the MSC's total income was £15 million. Total expenditure for the same period was £12 million. The MSC Board recognises it as generally good practice to hold reserves as a protection against any financial difficulties in the future. A reserves target of 6 to 9 months’ cover is considered to be necessary, at least as an aspiration, given the MSC's absence of a subscribing membership and uncertainty, as a market-based program, of its various income streams.
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Marine Stewardship Council
The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) is a non-profit organisation which aims to set standards for sustainable fishing. Fisheries that wish to demonstrate they are well-managed and sustainable compared to the MSC's standards are assessed by a team of Conformity Assessment Bodies (CABs).
The mission of the MSC is to use its ecolabel, for which the MSC receives royalties for licensing it to products, and fishery certification program to recognise and reward sustainable fishing practices.
The MSC has faced criticism in the past, mainly centering on its close ties to the fishing industry and conflict of interest stemming from royalties received by the industry for its certification label.
A study commissioned and funded by MSC found that MSC-certified fisheries show improvements that deliver benefits to the marine environment. Benefits included: increased stocks; improved management of stocks; reduced bycatch; expansion of environmentally protected areas; and increased knowledge about ecosystem impacts amongst fishers.
The MSC was founded in 1996, inspired by the Grand Banks cod fishery collapse. In 1999 it became independent of its founding partners, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and Unilever. MSC has a staff of around 140 spread across the headquarters in London, regional offices in London, Seattle, Singapore and Sydney, and local offices in Edinburgh, Berlin, The Hague, Paris, Cape Town, Tokyo, Reykjavik, and the Baltic region.
Fisheries that want certification and to use the ecolabel pay US$20,000 to more than $100,000 to an independent, for-profit contractor that assesses the fishery against the MSC standard and determines whether to recommend certification. The assessors are independently accredited to perform MSC assessments by Accreditation Services International (ASI). After certification, fisheries undergo annual audits costing $75,000 per audit and are recertified every five years.
As of March 2019[update], the use of DNA barcoding by the MSC has reduced species mislabelling (sometimes done fraudulently) to less than 1% among covered products, compared to the sector average of roughly 30%.
The MSC is a registered charity and non-profit organisation and depends on various sources of funding. From 1 April 2011 to 31 March 2012, the MSC's total income was £15 million. Total expenditure for the same period was £12 million. The MSC Board recognises it as generally good practice to hold reserves as a protection against any financial difficulties in the future. A reserves target of 6 to 9 months’ cover is considered to be necessary, at least as an aspiration, given the MSC's absence of a subscribing membership and uncertainty, as a market-based program, of its various income streams.