From global ideals to local realities - the foundations of sustainability.

The aquaculture industry is subject to regulations, standards and indicators generated at a variety of management levels: international, national and industry. The SustainFish project has mapped and studied the existent standards and indicators available for defining sustainable production in aquaculture on a global, national and industry level, and created insight into how the industry is applying these. The investigation into the role and impact of certification schemes has uncovered how and in what manners certification schemes define and conceptualize sustainable aquaculture production. The results show that while environmental and governance dimensions are well covered by prevalent schemes, the attempts to address economic and social dimension of sustainability are few and far between. The project has developed a framework for describing sustainability in aquaculture. This has been used as a base for investigating what prevalent certification schemes entail, and for exploring different avenues towards further development of indicators for sustainability, especially in the social and economic domain. The project has also investigated the experience and practices of certification in the industry, and with the auditors. The sustainability frameworks provide a valid lexicon for identifying themes and topics with relevance for sustainability in aquaculture production, and is openly available for use. The sustainability framework his has been used to review and code prevalent certification schemes in use by the aquaculture industry. The coding has resulted in an openly accessible database containing the coding of the eight most widely used certification schemes in Chile, Norway and Scotland, and the pertaining 1900 indicators. The database provides the opportunity to search for specific themes and indicators, as well as the various certification schemes. The project has also studied how these standards are implemented on a company level in three countries: Norway, Chile and Scotland. Furthermore, what challenges auditors and aquaculture companies meet in certifying their productions by observing and interviewing in connection with certification audits. The results have resulted in internationally published papers with open access which provide policy advice to stakeholders and authorities by identifying the gaps that needs to be addressed, and improvement possibilities for developing sustainability indicators.

Across the globe, the aquaculture industry, like other industries, are expected to demonstrate how they are conscious about sustainability, and to implement improvement measures. On the other hand, sustainability is a vague concept, and it is necessary to exhibit and exemplify concrete measures that has a bearing on sustainability in order to reach meaningful improvements. The results of the SustainFish project bears such a significance, available as a large open database, a reference model encapsulating relevant topics for sustainability in aquaculture, and numerous journal articles going in-depth on selected issues. The project has strengthened and forged important academic relations which will be fruitful in future work. The strong interdisciplinary character of the project means that the team stands prepared to collaborate on other interdisciplinary project in the future. Some of the participants are already collaborating in new research projects.

Creating robust indicators for sustainability is a comprehensive and interdisciplinary task. SUSTAIN-FISH will start by charting existing standards and indicators available for defining sustainable production in aquaculture, on a global, national and industry level. It will take as its vantage point all three commonly identified aspects of sustainability (environmental, economic and social) and target standards and indicators created by international, national and local actors to which the aquaculture industry (especially Atlantic salmon) is subject by law or necessity (WP 1). In consultation with actors from the aquaculture industry, SUSTAINFISH will then investigate how individual firms in the industry experience and implement these existing standards (WP 2). This work will be done through case studies in three key salmon aquaculture countries (Norway, Chile and Scotland), and by a qualitative comparative questionnaire. Building on WPs 1 and 2, SUSTAINFISHs WP 3 will examine how different institutional contexts and actor capabilities impact the regulatory framework and the effect this has on competitiveness and on achieving sustainability. This will be a comparative study of the three countries. In WP 4, SUSTAIN FISH will use relevant literature and expert evaluation to analyze the existing package of standards and indicators to identify: 1) whether existing indicators fit together well or are conflictual; 2) whether and how these meet industry and management needs; and 3) what aspects of sustainability are not represented in the existing packages (gaps). Gaps will be identified with respect to declared governmental policy as well as with respect to external (disciplinary) evaluations of what aspects of sustainability should be covered.