Established in 2013 by global farmed salmon producers focused on making progress on industry sustainability, the Global Salmon Initiative (GSI) comprises twenty-two companies fully committed to providing a highly sustainable source of healthy food to feed a growing global population.
The initiative officially welcomed Chilean coho salmon producer, Salmones Aysén. This addition increases GSI membership to fourteen salmon farming companies alongside the eight supply chain member companies, spanning all operating regions.
GSI, which is present in Australia, Canada, Chile, the Faroe Islands, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway, and the UK, also has supply chain associate members from the pharmaceutical and feed industries. Together, the member companies are committed to embracing the initiative’s core principles of increasing sustainability, transparency, and cooperation to accelerate improvements in the sector’s environmental performance at speed and scale.
“Sustainability has been a longtime priority for Salmones Aysén, and we’re excited to join the Global Salmon Initiative as a natural extension of this focus. Individual efforts, such as our company’s climate action strategy and goals, are important, but they are not sufficient in today’s rapidly changing world. We need to be smarter, we need to continuously and responsibly improve. GSI has created an impressive model to help the companies do just that,” said Pablo Baraona Covarrubias, director of Salmones Aysén.
Salmones Aysén joins GSI during a time of significant progress and momentum across the group’s leadership efforts and sustainability initiatives. Earlier this year, GSI partnered with FUTUREFISH and supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, convened executives from across the international aquaculture sector that resulted in the launch of an industry-wide call to action for purpose-driven aquaculture at the United Nations Ocean Conference.
The GSI’s CEO group will be spearheading this activity in the year ahead, sharing their knowledge on tech transfer and innovation to help motivate purpose-driven growth in the global aquaculture sector.
“What GSI has done in uniting companies, members of the supply chain, and leading external partners on key topics such as climate change, is the only way we will be able to bring about high impact, and give visibility to show the great stories this industry already has, and the great solutions it brings to the food security issues. By engaging with the other companies on these priority topics we can share experiences and knowledge on sustainability matters to measure and compare what’s working and what’s not supporting us in making smarter decisions towards improved sustainability performance,” said Baraona.
Over the last two years, GSI has been working in partnership with the World Wildlife Fund and IDH, the Sustainable Trade Initiative, and Blonk Consultancy, to adopt and pilot a common GHG emission accounting framework for the sector. It was this topic that was high on the CEO group agenda for this meeting, as they meet to agree on reporting frameworks, timeframes, future goals, and collective mitigation efforts.
“The landscape in which we operate is ever more complex and challenging. From climate, biodiversity, fish welfare, to feed, the companies are under pressure to demonstrate progress on each front, and it’s quite simply a mountain to climb,” said Sophie Ryan, CEO at GSI. “Farmed salmon has a great story to tell in terms of its contributions to healthy, sustainable, and climate-resilient diets, but we both need to secure that future through continuous improvements and tell that story in an aligned voice to ensure we are not forgotten, this is where collective efforts can deliver.”
