Organising consumer involvement in the greening of global food flows: the role of environmental NGOs in the case of marine fish

Abstract

Consumers are increasingly concerned about the impacts of global food provision, but especially in the case of marine fish, their unease is complex, locally specific and still evolving. Responding to these apprehensions solely by promoting short local supply chains is restricted to niche markets and leaves other opportunities for increasing sustainability untouched. Additional, complementary strategies for the greening of food supply chains are examined. To analyse the interaction between local and global dynamics, the sociology of networks and flows is applied to the case of marine fish production and consumption in order to identify innovative governance arrangements that make global supply chains more sustainable. Certifying fisheries and the use of fish wallet cards by consumers are examples of new governance arrangements that connect sustainability concerns of consumers with production decisions made by distant actors. To improve the effectiveness of these arrangements, new roles are proposed for environmental NGOs as representatives of local actors and as managers of trust in certifying institutions.

Keywords:

• marine fish
• sociology of networks and flows
• governance arrangements
• labelling strategies
• wallet cards
• consumer trust
• ENGOs

Notes

 1. A key driver for this transformation was the need to keep Unilever, a large food multinational, at a distance because their involvement aroused criticisms (Constance and Bonanno 2000).

 2. In 2007, the organisation of Dutch food retailers announced that by 2011 all wild-caught fish sold in Dutch supermarkets will come from sustainable fisheries, certified to the MSC's environmental standard. During the transition period, fish products are assigned a sticker informing the consumer that the retail sector is making efforts to realise a full assortment of sustainable fish products in the near future.

 3. URL: www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/seafoodwatch.asp [Accessed 22 December 2009].

 4. URL: www.seafoodchoices.com/whoweare [Accessed 23 December 2009].

 5. Monterey Bay Aquarium, Seafood Watch, West Coast Seafood Guide, July 2009.

 6. URL: www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/seafoodwatch.asp [Accessed 23 December 2009].

 7. Environmental Defense, pocket seafood selector, updated 7 January 2009.

 8. Interestingly, the Environmental Defense's Pocket Seafood Selector also indicates species with a high presence of mercury or polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) (within the categories of OK and worst choices) and those that are high in omega-3 fatty acids and low in environmental contaminants (within the best choices’ category). This suggests that eco-unfriendly fish is also unhealthy while eco-friendliness goes together with improved human health.

 9. Environmental Defense Fund rates the different species on separate criteria for capture fisheries (life history, abundance, gear impacts on habitat, bycatch and management) and for aquaculture (system design, feed content, water pollution, risk to other species and ecosystem effects). See URL: http://www.edf.org/page.cfm?tagID=13201 [Accessed 23 December 2009]. These criteria are applied per species next to relevant health details.

10. URL: http://www.goedevis.nl/visgids/beoordeling.html

11. In particular, the small-scale sector of developing countries has difficulties in providing the environmental data that constitute the basis for a certification process and may lack sufficient capacity to comply with the technical or financial requirements involved. These unintended consequences are the reason why MSC is introducing a particular certification procedure for ‘data-poor’ fisheries (MSC 2009b).