Acronym EECSAF
Category
Fisheries
Title Effectiveness of Eco labelling in Sustainable Fisheries Programme National Programme
Instrument (FP6)
Contact Type (FP7)
Strand (Interreg)
NA
Theme (FP7)
Activity Area (FP6)
Regional Area (Interreg)
Action (COST)
NA
Specific Programme (FP7)
NA
Funding source National Coordinator Tavis Potts Coordinator email tavis.potts@sams.ac.uk
Coordinator institution
SAMS - Scottish Association for Marine Science (United Kingdom)
Institutions involved
NA - Dolphin Safe Tuna (United States of America) ,
ESRC - Economic and Social Research Council (United Kingdom) ,
FOS - Friend of the Sea (Italy) ,
Start year 2007 End year 2009 Funding (€) € 147,793 Website NA Summary Certification refers to the process of auditing a fishery against a set of criteria, benchmarks or regulations. Ecolabelling refers to the awarding of a label to a product along the lines of environmental best practice (Potts & Haward 2006). The label coveys to consumers that the product has been created with minimal impact or is in line with organic principles. The theory is that with an increasingly aware consumer, market benefits will flow to producers who are labelled as 'sustainable'. In theory, the market will reward fisheries and aquaculture producers who chose environmental best practice (Deere 1999). Ecolabelling has a number of strengths that include promoting choice, improving economic efficiency, increasing transparency, and linking production processes to a product (ICTSD 2006). The certification process can commit fisheries to improvement and scrutiny by civil society and targets the consumer who is encouraged to use buying power to promote better environmental outcomes. Problems identified with certification include the transparency of the process, the challenges associated with labelling, the potential to act as a trade barrier, and the influence of ecolabels on the market and the extent to which they influence fisheries management. This research aims to unravel some of the key questions surrounding the certification and ecolabelling process. The first phase of the research will examine 11 organisations that certify fisheries or aquaculture operations and will compare their processes of certification and the management of the label. The second phase of the research will explore the market effectiveness of selected eco-labels. Do they influence consumers? Do labels contravene rules of trade or disadvantage producers in developing countries? The final phase of the research will examine certified operations to explore if actual improvements to management have occurred as a result of the certification process. This project is innovative as it looks at fisheries and aquaculture certification systems together and investigates the fundamental questions surrounding the effectiveness of certification and ecolabelling as market based management tools.
Keywords
Market;
Certification;
Labelling;
Marine Region
76
Not associated to marine areas
0
Marine Region Map
