Business-to-business certification program for marine ingredients, MarinTrust, released its 2022-2023 interactive report, summarizing the key areas of growth and global engagement. The report gives snapshot insights into each aspect of MarinTrust’s work, from the latest developments of the MarinTrust Standard Version 3 (to be launched in October 2023) to the further global expansion of the Improver Programme and MarinTrust Chain of Custody Standard.

Strong focus on Environmental, social, and governance (ESG)

The development of Version 3 of the MarinTrust Standard paves the way for gathering all impact metrics and data collection around ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) ratings in the production of marine ingredients. In the longer term, this will allow the industry to track and measure ESG impacts on a larger scale and demonstrate the sustainable production of ingredients to the value chain.

Libby Woodhatch, MarinTrust’s executive chair, noted that “environmental and social responsibility is at the heart of V3, both in the factories and on the vessels. V3 will further strengthen the requirements around worker welfare, rights, freedom of association, health and safety, and working conditions and also increase the scope of the standard with new social criteria controls for vessels supplying whole fish to marine ingredients factories. These steps ensure the standard remains relevant, credible and market-facing.”

Traceability

The key to implementing traceability throughout the marine ingredient sector goes beyond its inclusion within the MarinTrust Programme, to wider stakeholders ensuring its inclusion and recognition by wider systems and standards.

“The link in the value chain that represents marine ingredients - which sits between fisheries and aquaculture - is always a blind spot. Working closely with The Global Dialogue on Seafood Traceability (GDST), we are shaping the inclusion of marine ingredients activities within the wider seafood industry while supporting the inclusion of GDST standards and data requirements to enhance traceability, covering the collection, usage, transfer and management of data,” said MarinTrust’s CEO Francisco Aldon.

Global growth

In the last twelve months, MarinTrust has welcome nine new factories across Chile, Côte d'Ivoire, Estonia, Finland, Norway, Panama, Peru, and Vietnam to the MarinTrust Standard. In this period, four companies with facilities in Denmark, Malaysia and Spain have joined the MarinTrust Chain of Custody Standard.

Also in this period, five new sites in Denmark, Malaysia and Spain have been accepted as MarinTrust Improver Programme factory sites. Finally, there are six ongoing Fishery Improvement Projects (FIPs) accepted under the MarinTrust Improver Programme.

The full report can be found here.