Responsible fisheries and aquaculture - Activating a comprehensive Ecological, Social, and Governance (ESG) reporting data system to uplift sustainability and traceability

Funding Activity

Website
https://www.frdc.com.au/project/2023-024

Funding Status
Active

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Funded Activity Summary

Verification of fishing and aquaculture sustainability credentials is essential to increase consumer confidence, market access and community benefit. Sector performance currently centres on monitoring fish stocks & economic benefits. However, markets increasingly require traceable evidence of Environmental, Social & Governance (ESG) indicators such as provenance, safety, diversity, animal welfare, carbon, biodiversity to inform decisions. To meet this need, this project activates CSIROs Healthcheck ESG Fishing & Aquaculture data system by engaging industry, managers & researchers to identify data gaps and prioritise/collect essential indicators to allow more comprehensive ESG reporting. Data will be compatible and interoperable with existing catalogues/exchanges, for publishing to recognised sustainability frameworks (e.g. Status of Australian Fish Stocks, WhichFish, National Fisheries Plan, UN SDGs). Community surveys will allow adaptive prioritisation of future data/reporting needs.

Objectives:
1. Activate an existing ESG data system (Healthcheck) with complementary ESG frameworks (Status of Australian Fish Stocks, Whichfish, Our Pledge, National Fisheries Plan, UN SDGs) and promote data use to increase traceability & sustainability of wild harvest fisheries, aquaculture operations and fish stocks (hereafter, F&A)
2. Increase the number of F&A reporting against ESG frameworks from 20 to 100 stocks (over 90 percent seafood value)
3. Address F&A priority data gaps
4. Increase data access & traceability through use of data exchanges
5. Use feasibility tested data to populate existing/emerging sustainability frameworks (e.g. Status of Australian Fish Stocks, National Fisheries Plan reporting, carbon & nature-based financial disclosure frameworks) and use verified sustainability credentials to demonstrate best practice (e.g. SIAs ‘Our Pledge’, Marine Stewardship Certification)
6. Be interoperable with related frameworks e.g. Australian Agricultural Sustainability Framework, ‘Know & Show your Carbon Footprint’ (funded by Agricultural Innovation Australia)
7. Understand community sustainability sentiment to inform future data gap prioritisation and build confidence

Funded Activity Details

Start Date: 01-08-2023

End Date: 30-07-2025

Funding Scheme: Funding Scheme not available

Funding Amount: $500,000.00

Funder: Fisheries Research and Development Corporation

Research Topics

ANZSRC Field of Research (FoR)

There are no FoR codes available for this funding activity

ANZSRC Socio-Economic Objective (SEO)

There are no SEO codes available for this funding activity

Other Keywords

Data | Emissions Reduction | Sustainability

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