CHINA SEAFOOD SUSTAINABLE CONSUMPTION GUIDE

"Sustainable consumption" has emerged as being a key component of ethically responsible food systems. China is perceived as the world's seafood juggernaut, the world's largest producer, exporter, and consumer, representing roughly a third of the global market. However, there is lack of seafood consumption guide target Chinese consumers - the world biggest seafood consumption group. Existed seafood consumption guidelines such as Seafood Watch and WWF seafood Guide are mainly targeting seafood international trade and consumers in developed countries, and these guidelines are always in English, which is a great obstacle for Chinese consumers.

The ongoing project is aiming to develop the first of this kind seafood sustainable consumption guide in China. This guide is based on a set of comprehensive indicators which covers food safety, environmental performance, social and economic issues, and animal welfare. Indicator and criteria development is based on Chinese culture background and consumer preference. Such consumer guide will assist Chinese consumers and food professionals at retail level in making less environmentally harmful seafood choices and to act as a communication tool, raising awareness of the different environmental aspects of seafood production and potential conflicts with animal welfare.

To accomplish this aim, an integrated, systems thinking and interdisciplinary approach in which both top-down and bottom-up approaches are needed. Starting from system scoping and reviews, to indicator and criteria development, main stream seafood in China will be evaluated, and then to the dissemination of result through poster, website, mobile phone app and stakeholder workshops.

Indicator development is primarily based on life cycle thinking and life cycle assessment (LCA). LCA is a broader indicator-based approaches were developed to quantify the degree of environmental impact at both local and global scale. LCA has become increasingly used for aquaculture development assessment, as it can provide a comprehensive, holistic approach for assessing the 'cradle-to-grave' sustainability of a product or process.

This project tries to build a more holistic seafood consumption guide, thus a more complete sustainability assessment including economic and social aspects are also needed. In current Chinese society, food safety is one of the most important concerns of consumers, other social and economic concerns are also important. Although animal welfare is not an important concern of Chinese consumers at present, people may see this is an important aspect of fisheries and aquaculture development in the future. As such seafood consumption guide will work as a communication tool and raising awareness, indicators will need to cover important point for now in the future. A few indicators were primarily selected, namely food safety, carbon footprint, biodiversity, social and economic concerns, and animal welfare. These indicators will be used to pilot with several most important fisheries and aquaculture species, and then to build corresponding criteria before large scale application.