22 SEPTEMBER 2014 • WORLD AQUACULTURE • WWW.WAS.ORG proposition of the process was not limited to development of credible standards only, but was the creation of awareness about problems and consensus about identifying the most important impacts. The process filled in gaps where there was a lack of data, especially when findings were contradictory, and where uncertainty was high. In short, the process resulted in standards with “buy-in” but also outlined a roadmap for what a company can do to become a responsible producer. The private sector has a seminal role to play in sustainable aquaculture development. It is in the best interest of commercial aquaculture and its bottom line to do so. A recent example of this was demonstrated by the announcement in 2013 of the formation of the Global Salmon Initiative (GSI; www.globalsalmoninitiative. org). Producer CEOs representing 70 percent of global farmed salmon production agreed to work together in a precompetitive arrangement to resolve the outstanding environmental and social issues and attain ASC-Salmon certification by 2020. The farmed salmon industry put sustainability before competition in a credible strategy to meet the demands they faced for supplying consumer demand and doing so sustainably. Today, the GSI technical committees are proactively working on areas such as sea lice infestations, sustainable feed and best practices for farm biosecurity. The largest impact of the GSI will ultimately be its effect on commercial aquaculture of other species. Already several shrimp companies have come forward to explore how a similar platform could be organized for farmed shrimp. Initiatives to resolve outstanding environmental and social issues are of paramount importance. Commercial aquaculture sectors should utilize international forums to help develop positions on engagement and effective external communication as part of addressing the challenging issues. The embrace of open collaboration by commercial aquaculture will educate seafood buyers, retailers and those in the food service industry, which will aid all groups in helping consumers connect the dots between their purchase decisions and responsible fish farming. It is the most credible and robust social license to operate! It also permits aquaculture sectors to compete with other animal food production sectors on a unique dimension and steer away from a strategy that competes on the same dimension. Other, more mature, non-food related industries have successfully implemented these initiatives and I argue that aquaculture can do the same, thereby leap-frogging ahead of other food sectors in demonstrating environmental and social performance, possibly be the leading example of responsible production for other food-producing sectors, especially for animal protein, on a finite planet. There are several real and practical platforms to consider joining and proactively participating in a precompetitive way to address the outstanding issues of the industry. A few of these multi-stakeholder industry platforms that address environmental and social concerns of today are the Sustainable Food Laboratory (sustainablefoodlab.org), The Sustainability Consortium (www. sustainabilityconsortium.org) and The Consumer Goods Forum (www.theconsumergoodsforum.com). The Sustainable Food Laboratory, for example, is a consortium of business, non-profit and public organizations working together to accelerate the shift toward sustainability. These platforms create scale as their memberships represent more than 500 of the world’s largest organizations in over 70 countries, working together to create precompetitive and cross-sector solutions to sustainability issues. They work together to create sustainability-related knowledge about particular product categories. Many of the familiar brand, retail and food service customers are members in one or more of these platforms. I would argue that GSI has a place at the table of, for example, of The Consumer Goods Forum or The Sustainable Food Laboratory. Such engagement will provide the opportunity to showcase the achievements of aquaculture in creating global environmental and social gold standards. Further, it can demonstrate the progress made by aquaculture in further addressing outstanding issues in an open, transparent and precompetitive way. No other food sector has yet to accomplish this. This is a story that remains to be told. We are in this together. We can no longer be compartmentalized by stereotypical characteristics of any particular stakeholder group. The darkest moments give rise to the brightest moments. We should embrace the notion of entering the darkness to find solutions. This will lead the way to allow the social license to operate and the doubling of aquaculture production by 2050 in a manner that provides the additional food we need while managing limitations in this finite world. This article is based on a plenary address by the author at World Aquaculture 2014 in Adelaide, Australia. – Ed. QCS is here to meet your unique needs. • Organic & GLOBALG.A.P. 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