Farmed Atlantic salmon accounts for nearly all of the world’s red-rated salmon. Our improvement efforts prioritize farmed Atlantic salmon that is:

• Red-rated by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch Program (see all farmed Atlantic salmon ratings here); or
• Within the scope of Sustainable Fisheries Partnership’s Target 75 Initiative

A baseline step businesses can take to accelerate progress in improving performance is to prioritize the purchase of certified or Best Choice salmon and encourage suppliers to pursue improvements. The collaboration is focused on improving the performance of farmed Atlantic salmon production by building on promising NGO and industry initiatives.

Aquaculture Stewardship Council

ASC works closely with the Global Salmon Initiative to facilitate data sharing and best practices to support industry improvements and promote salmon as a sustainable food source. GSI has a commitment that all members become ASC certified, a means to achieving the common vision to improve environmental performance and industry reputation. GSI represents 40% of the global farmed salmon industry. 

ASC is developing an Improver Programme to provide farms a clear and measurable path towards improved production and certification. The ASC will in essence be defining what a credible Aquaculture Improvement Project (AIP) looks like, applying similar conditions and criteria around transparency, rigour and credibility as the ASC certification program. The program pairs producers with implementation and verification support to conduct initial assessments, understand gaps in performance and establish an action plan to achieve certification and best practices within a defined time frame. The program will be piloted on shrimp farms in 2020, with subsequent expansion across production systems.

Interested businesses can contact ASC’s Roy Van Daatselaar (roy.vandaatselaar@asc-aqua.org) to learn more about the Improver Programme.

Seafood Watch

The Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch program ratings are based on specific location and production method information. For detailed information, visit the Seafood Watch recommendations on Atlantic salmon.

Seafood Watch is working with diverse stakeholders to improve farmed salmon in Chile. To learn more about the projects, please visit the Seafood Watch website.

Sustainable Fisheries Partnership

SFP’s “T75” initiative is focused on ensuring that at least 75% of world production in key sectors is sustainable (i.e., certified by the MSC program, or green-listed in SFP’s Metrics tool) or making regular, verifiable improvements. For wild production:

• Certified by one of the following programs: IFFO RS, ASMI RFM, Iceland Responsible Fisheries, Fair Trade USA
• Or under full assessment in the MSC program
• Or in a FIP that is making good progress (i.e., with a progress rating of A, B, or C using SFP’s FIP evaluation tool

SFP has developed a visual display of T75 progress for each of the key seafood sectors, including farmed Atlantic salmon and wild and farmed salmon from other regions. Please check the latest estimates here.

To learn more, visit the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership’s Aquaculture Supply Chain Roundtable. For detailed information, contact info@sustainablefish.org. 

FIP/ AIP

While the Collaboration focuses on farmed salmon, there are a handful of active salmon FIPs that provide opportunities to contribute to sustainability improvements. To learn more about specific FIPs, consult the FisheryProgress.org FIP directory or the Improvement projects page of FishSource.

Although there are no active farmed salmon AIPs that are publicly reporting progress at this time, you can learn more about how to initiate improvement projects by consulting the AIP Directory.