From “Boat to Plate”: Creating Value through Sustainable Fish Supply Chain Visibility

Environmental concerns about the scarcity of marine resources are critical driving forces for firms aiming to prepare their supply chains for sustainability. Building on previous work, this paper highlights the implementation of good practices geared towards sustainable operations in the seafood department, which were pursued in an exploratory retailer case. Outcomes of the adopted environmentally and socially acceptable fish retailing strategies, ranged from traceability, to self-certification and eco-labelling. The consequences for business were, as follows: stronger collaboration and trust across the chain of custody, improvement of sponsors’ image and of consumers’ loyalty and, progress in the Greenpeace retailers’ evaluation ranking.

Authors:

• Isabel Duarte de Almeida
• João Vilas-Boas
• Luís Miguel Ferreira

Keywords:

• Sustainability in sea food
• Supply Chain Traceability
• Social Responsibility.

References:

[1] FAO, The State of world fisheries and aquaculture. Rome, Italy, 2010.
[2] M. Till and S. Markus, “The Law and Policy Behind the Upcoming
Reform of the Common Fisheries Policy,” Journal for European
Environmental and Planning Law, vol. 9, no. 3-4, pp. 257-284, 2012.
[3] F. Laxe, “Dysfunctions in common fishing regulations,” Marine Policy,
vol. 34, pp. 182–188, 2010.
[4] J.F.Caddy, “Limit reference points, traffic lights, and holistic approaches
to fisheries management with minimal stock assessment input,” Fish.
Res., vol. 56, pp. 133–137, 2002.
[5] R. Yin, Case study research: design and methods. 2nd ed., Sage
Publications, Inc., USA, 1994.
[6] BOI – Blue Ocean Institute, retrieved March, 16, 2013, from:
http://blueocean.org/.
[7] T. Fenchel, “Ocean Acidification: A National Strategy to Meet
Challenges of a Changing Ocean, National Research Council of the
National Academies,” Marine Biology Research, vol. 7, no. 4, pp. 418-
419, 2011.
[8] J.M. Lyman, S.A. Good, V.V. Gouretski, M. Ishii, G.C. Johnson, M.D.
Palmer, D.M. Smith and J.K. Willis, “Robust warming of the global
upper ocean,” Nature, vol. 465, pp. 334–337, 2010. [9] L. Airoldi and W. Beck, “Loss, status and trends for coastal marine
habitats of Europe,” vol. 45, pp. 345–405, 2007.
[10] M. Schrope, “The dead zones,” New Scientist, vol. 192, no. 2581, pp.38-
42, 2006.
[11] B. Shakouri, S. Yazdi and A. Fashandi, “Overfishing,” in 2nd
International Conference on Chemical, Biological and Environmental
Engineering (ICBEE 2010), 2010.
[12] D. Pauly, J. Alder, E. Bennett, V. Christensen, P. Tyedmers and R.
Watson, “The future for fisheries. (State of the Planet),” Science, vol.
302, no. 5649, pp.1359-1362, 2003.
[13] M. J. Anderson, R. N. Gorley and K. R. Clarke, PERMANOVA + for
PRIMER: Guide to Software and Statistical Methods. PRIMER‐E:
Plymouth, UK, 2008.
[14] S. Greenstreet, F. Spence, A. Shanks and J. McMillan, “Fishing effects
in NE Atlantic shelf seas: patterns in fishing effort, diversity and
community structure II,” Fisheries Research, vol. 40, no. 1, pp. 107-124,
1999.
[15] Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisherie, Article 12.18, 1995.
[16] EJF – Environmental Justice Foundation, “Pirate Fishing Exposed: The
Fight against Illegal Fishing in West Africa and the EU”, retrieved
March, 16, 2013, from: www.ejfoundation.org, 2012.
[17] Greenpeace, “Greenpeace International Blacklist,” retrieved March, 16,
2013, from: http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/campaigns/
oceans/pirate-fishing/Blacklist1/.
[18] Wall Street Journal, “Global fishing trade depletes African waters,”
retrieved March, 16, 2013, from: http://www.illegal-fishing.info, 23 July
2007.
[19] COM – Commission of the EU communities, “Recommendation from
the Commission to the Council,” retrieved March, 16, 2013, from:
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:
2008:0333:FIN:EN:PDF, Brussels, 28.5.2008.
[20] J. Jacquet and D. Pauly, “The rise of seafood awareness campaigns in an
era of collapsing fisheries,” Marine Policy, vol. 31, pp. 308–313, 2007.
[21] M. Thrane, F. Ziegler and U. Sonesson, “Eco-labelling of wild-caught
seafood products,” Journal of Cleaner Production, vol. 17, pp. 416–423,
2009.
[22] V. Christensen, J. Steenbeek and P. Failler, “A combined ecosystem and
value chain modelling approach for evaluating societal cost and benefit
of fishing,” Ecological Modelling, vol. 222, pp 857-864, 2011.
[23] M. Linnenluecke and A. Griffiths, “Corporate sustainability and
organizational culture,” Journal of World Business, vol. 45, pp. 357–
366, 2010.
[24] Q. Zhu, Y. Geng and K. Lai, “Environmental supply chain cooperation,”
Journal of Industrial Ecology, vol. 15, pp. 405-419, 2011.
[25] S. Vachon and Z. Mao, “Linking supply chain strength to sustainable
development: a country-level analysis,” Journal of Cleaner Production,
vol. 16, pp. 1552-1560, 2008.
[26] D. Lambert, M. Cooper and J. Pagh, “Supply chain management:
Implementation issues and research opportunities,” International
Journal of Logistics Management, vol. 9, no. 2, pp. 1-19, 1998.
[27] P. L. Connoly and L. Caffrey, “Supply chaining fishery advice,” ICES –
Journal of Marine Science, vol. 68, no. 8, pp. 1706-1711, 2011.
[28] D. Styles, H. Schoenberger and J. Galvez-Martos, “Environmental
improvement of product supply chains: Proposed best practice
techniques, quantitative indicators and benchmarks of excellence for
retailers,” Journal of Environmental Management, vol. 110, pp. 135-
150, 2012.
[29] B. Minten, L. Randrianarison and J. Swinnen, “Global retail chains and
poor farmers: evidence from Madagascar,” World Development, vol. 37,
pp. 1728-1741, 2009.
[30] COM – Commission of the EU communities, “Corporate Social
Responsibility: A business contribution to Sustainable Development,”
retrieved March, 16, 2013, from: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/
LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2002:0347:FIN:EN:PDF, 2002.
[31] Greenpeace, “Uma receita para o desastre: o apetite insaciável dos
supermercados por peixe,” Greenpeace International, J.N.152,
Amsterdam. Retrieved March, 16, 2013, from:
http://www.greenpeace.org/portugal/PageFiles/51829/1-rankingsupermercados.
pdf, 2008a.
[32] F. Caniato, M. Caridi, L. Crippa, A. Moretto, “Environmental
sustainability in fashion supply chains: an exploratory case based
research,” Int. Journal of Production Economics, vol. 135, pp. 659-670,
2012.
[33] I. Vazquez-Rowe, A. Hospido, M. Moreira and G. Feijoo, “Best
practices in life cycle assessment implementation in fisheries. Improving
and broadening environmental assessment for seafood production
systems,” Trends in Food Science & Technology, vol. 28, pp. 116-131,
2012.
[34] OECD, “Environmental Labelling in OECD Countries,” OECD, Paris,
1991.
[35] IISD, “The ISO 14020 series,” retrieved March, 16, 2013, from:
http://www.iisd.org/business/markets/eco_label_iso14020.aspx, 2013.
[36] EEC – Environment Ecolabel Catalogue, retrieved March, 16, 2013,
from: http://ec.europa.eu/ecat/, 2013.
[37] C. Wessells, K. Cochrane, C. Deere, P. Wallis and R. Willmann,
“Product certification and ecolabelling for fisheries sustainability,” FAO
Fisheries Technical Paper 422, 2001.
[38] Mintel Academic, “Food retailing – UK – November,” retrieved March,
16, 2013, from: http://academic.mintel.com/sinatra/oxygenacademic/
searchresults/show&/display/id=280627, 2008.
[39] Mintel Academic, “Sustainability in the Food Chain (Industrial Report)
– Ireland, retrieved March, 16, 2013, from: http://academic.mintel.com/
display/483570/?highlight=true#, October 2010.
[40] Greenpeace (2008b). Lista vermelha dos peixes, retrieved March, 16,
2013, from: http://www.greenpeace.org/portugal/Global/portugal/report/
2008/6/lista-vermelha-peixes.pdf.
[41] FAO, “Code of conduct for responsible fisheries,” Rome, Italy, 41pp.,
retrieved March, 16, 2013, from: http://www.fao.org/docrep/
005/v9878e/v9878e00.HTM, 1995
[42] A. Iles, “Making the seafood industry more sustainable: creating
production chain transparency and accountability,” Journal of Cleaner
Production, vol. 15, pp. 577-589, 2007.
[43] UNEP – United Nations Environment Programme, “The Role of Supply
Chains in Addressing the Global Seafood Crisis,” DTI/1218/PA,
Retrieved March, 16, 2013, http://www.unep.ch/etb/publications/Fish
%20Supply%20Chains/UNEP%20fish%20supply%20chains%20report.
pdf, 2009.
[44] K. Shao, “Marine Biodiversity and Fishery Sustainability,” Journal of
Clinical Nutrition, vol. 18, no. 4, p. 527, 2009.
[45] S. M. Martin, T. A. Cambridge, C. Grieve, F. N. Nimmo and D.J.
Agnew, “An Evaluation of Environmental Changes within Fisheries
Involved in the Marine Stewardship Council Certification Scheme,”
Reviews in Fisheries Science, vol. 20, no. 2, 61-69, 2012.
[46] J. Phillipson, “Widening the Net. Prospects for Fisheries Co-
Management,” retrieved March, 16, 2013, www.ncl.ac.uk/cre/
publish/Books/Fishfinal.pdf, 2002.
[47] H. Karl and C. Orwat, “Economic aspects of environmental labelling,”
in: Folmer, H., Tietenberg, T. (Eds.), The International Yearbook of
Environmental and Resource Economics 1999/2000, Edward Elgar,
Cheltenham (UK), pp. 107–170, 1999.
[48] J. de Boer, “Sustainability labelling schemes: the logic of their claims
and their functions for stakeholders,” Business Strategy and the
Environment, vol. 12, no. 4, pp. 254–264, 2003.
[49] Greenpeace, “Uma receita para a biodiversidade supermercados:
ingredientes para preservar a vida dos oceanos,” Greenpeace
International, J.N.313, Amsterdam, retrieved March, 16, 2013, from:
(http://www.greenpeace.org/portugal/PageFiles/51810/ranking3.pdf,
2010.
[50] D. Widyaningrum and N. Masruroh, “Development of the Sea Fishery
Supply Chain Performance Measurement System: A Case Study,” Int. J
Sup. Chain. Mgt, vol. 1, no. 3, pp. 20-32, 2012.