The Collaboration’s interactive online data tool launched in 2020, and our 2024 update adds a fifth year of data. As the dataset has grown richer, it’s become possible to begin exploring how our understanding of the seafood industry’s environmental performance has changed over time. This post explores the trends revealed by looking at how ratings and certification coverage has changed from the 2020 tool to the 2024 tool.
Certification and rating programs contributing data to the 2024 version of the tool assessed 122 Mmt of seafood. That’s an increase of 33 Mmt (13%) over the tonnage assessed by contributing programs for the 2020 tool.
The 13% increase is due to:
Largely due to the addition of data from new ratings and certification organizations, the data tool includes more information about seafood industries that are environmentally sustainable or actively making improvements to production practices to minimize ecosystem impacts. In 2020, 69.7 Mmt was certified by a contributing program, rated Green or Yellow by Seafood Watch, or in a fishery improvement program or aquaculture improvement program (FIP/AIP). By 2024, that amount had grown to 78.3 Mmt. While this paints an optimistic picture of the state of global seafood production, it is more a reflection of increased coverage by contributing organizations than that 12% of production is more sustainable than it once was. While there are plenty of examples of responsible producers making impactful improvements to the ways they catch or farm fish, these changes in coverage are small in comparison to production volume changes and the addition of new certifications or ratings to the Data Tool.
As noted above, we prefer to control for changes in total worldwide production. And in fact, global production also increased from 213.1 Mmt in 2020 to 222.5 Mmt in 2024. Thus, as a percent of total production, the responsible or improving share also grew from 33.7% in 2020 to 35.2% in 2024.
The following charts illustrate changes in wild and farmed seafood that is responsibly produced or improving. As noted above, this largely reflects increased coverage by contributing organizations.
Wild
Farmed
While we have made real progress in understanding the environmental performance of global seafood production since 2020, much work remains to be done. Perhaps most obviously, a large minority share of worldwide production (42%) remains unassessed. Closing that information gap remains a top priority for the Collaboration – one that businesses, governments, multilateral bodies, and NGOs concerned with environmental conservation must share.
As our understanding has grown, we’ve also discovered additional improvement priorities. Production rated red by Seafood Watch increased by more than 2 Mmt from 2020 to 2024.
As a share of global production, red rated seafood grew by 0.5% during that period. A portion of that growth is the result of downgrades from green or yellow when species populations have declined or habitat impacts became a concern, the rest is from growth in already red rated fisheries or aquaculture operations.
The 2024 data tool shows that China, Viet Nam, and Norway all produced more than 1 Mmt of red rated farmed seafood. Together, those countries accounted for almost 80% (10.3 Mmt) of the world’s 12.9 Mmt of red rated farmed seafood. With 7.1 Mmt, China alone accounts for well over half of unsustainable, farmed seafood.
The 5.8 Mmt of red rated wild seafood reported in the 2024 data tool is less geographically concentrated. The 8 largest producing countries are Indonesia, Russia, China, Japan, Spain, Iran, Taiwan, and India. Combined, they account for more than half (56%) of the world’s unsustainable, wild seafood.
Importantly, China is the only country that appears on both of those lists and, with more than 88 Mmt of seafood production, China produces nearly 40% of the world’s seafood. Improving the environmental performance of the Chinese seafood industry is essential for its long-term sustainability.
This trends analysis is intended to describe how our understanding of the seafood industry has changed over the last five years.
The environmental tool offers much more granular information than we’ve summarized here. Filters (more on those here) allow users to explore the sustainability of seafood from specific countries, commodities, or even species. You can use these filters to understand where the most sustainable farmed shrimp or salmon comes from, or what species account for most of that production. We also launched a distinct tool focused on human rights abuses and risks, offering country-level information about the treatment of seafood industry workers.
Tools are meant to be used. So, if you source red rated seafood, consider starting or supporting an improvement project or shifting your sourcing to something more sustainable – many eco-friendly alternatives can be found by using the tool. Or, if you manage a red rated fishery or farm, consider making changes to your production practices to become more sustainable. The Collaboration can give you guidance if you need help knowing what to do differently. Or, if you have information about an unassessed fishery or aquaculture operation, please reach out to the Collaboration. Lastly, if you have questions or need help, please contact us at info@certificationandratings.org.