The Science Based Targets Network (SBTN) has put out for consultation draft guidance on the first scientific targets for ocean impacts, ahead of the full roll out in 2025.

The guidance was developed by the SBTN Ocean Hub, led by WWF and Conservation International, alongside partners including FishWise, Marine Stewardship Council, The Nature Conservancy, Sustainable Fisheries Partnership, and UN Environment Programme Finance Initiative.

Open for consultation until Oct. 22, the document focuses on seafood value chains, addressing three key targets – avoiding overexploitation of wild fisheries, protecting habitats, and reducing risks to endangered marine wildlife.

“The aim of SBTN is to develop a methodology for science-based targets that will enable the corporate sector to align their own commitments to nature with the necessary speed and scale of action as determined by science,” it said.

“While firmly rooted in directing companies to assess, avoid, or mitigate their impacts on nature, ocean targets will go further by incentivising companies to deliver on regenerative, restorative, and transformative actions in collaboration with multiple stakeholders at the seascape scale.”

Under the framework, companies within seafood value chains must set targets both on-site and across upstream operations, prioritising those with the greatest environmental impact.

The first target requires companies to avoid relying on commodities derived from overexploited stocks while taking action to improve fisheries conditions and reduce overfishing.

“While primarily focused on companies engaged in or sourcing from wild capture fisheries, aquaculture companies that source feed from wild capture fisheries are also encouraged to work to avoid and reduce overexploitation through Target 1,” said the document.

In order to determine their pressure on the marine environment and improve fisheries conditions, companies should source data from stock assessments, or certifications and sustainability rating reports.

If these are not available, companies are encouraged to rely on Indigenous Peoples or local communities, even though this may prove insufficient for developing effective fishery management strategies, said SBTN.

HABITAT PROTECTION

The habitat protection target covers both aquaculture and wild fisheries, seeking to help companies avoid and mitigate impacts on marine ecosystems, such as coral reefs and seagrasses.

SBTN lists a number of best practices that organisations operating in these sectors should adopt.

These include avoiding the use of mobile bottom-contact gear in marine protected areas (MPAs) and that of trawls or dredges in vulnerable seafloor habitats for wild fisheries.

Acquaculture companies should report and disclose their farm-level impacts, assess risks arising from effluent discharge, and reduce the use of therapeutants, hormones, drugs, antibiotics, and other disease control chemicals.

“A company may have limited ability or influence to effect change on operations or practices within its supply chain. Similarly, while some companies cite power to influence through the supply chain as a primary tool that they use in their corporate social responsibility commitments, that power may be reserved exclusively for the largest buyers,” said the document.

“This target therefore is structured to provide opportunities both for companies that can change their operations directly, as well as those throughout the supply chain that may not be able to leverage supply chain power or impact change on direct operations.”

These latter companies should take action to improve environmental outcomes in their upstream operations, as well as advocate for enhanced management and governance of marine habitats or the establishment of MPAs and Other Effective area-based Conservation Measures (OECMs), said SBTN.

ENDANGERED SPECIES CONSERVATION

Under the third target, companies in the wild capture fishing sector must reduce their impacts on endangered, threatened, and protected (ETP) marine wildlife species.

“The primary approach of this target guidance is to require companies to engage in improvements that reduce risk of interaction and increase the level and quality of available data about impacts of fishing on marine wildlife populations,” said SBTN.

Companies must stop sourcing wild capture seafood in case of demonstrated interactions, such as incidental bycatch, gear entanglement, noise pollution, or vessel strikes, with species listed as critically endangered, unless there are mitigation measures in place.

Otherwise, they should commit to reducing risks to these species within their upstream supply chains, or engage in activities that lead to enhancing conservation efforts.

“Advocacy initiatives must still include measurable outcomes at the seascape or jurisdictional level for target-setting either via changes in policy that contribute towards stated goals for ETP marine wildlife risk reductions and protections or via outcomes in the seascape or jurisdiction,” said the document.

The release of the draft guidance on ocean targets comes after SBTN launched in April a corporate pilot to develop the framework. The general launch is scheduled for mid-2025.

SBTN, a global initiative working to establish scientific objectives for nature conservation and restoration, already has dedicated hubs focusing on developing targets for freshwater, land, and biodiversity.

In May 2023, it launched a separate pilot to set targets for ecosystem protection and restoration, freshwater use, and freshwater pollution.

Enabling companies to develop high-quality scientific targets for their impacts on nature is poised to raise corporate awareness of the biodiversity crisis, while also driving demand for nature credits.

By Sergio Colombo – sergio@carbon-pulse.com

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