Costco revises seafood sustainability policy

Friday, February 25, 2011, 23:10 (GMT + nine)

Greenpeace USA this week applauded retailer Costco Corporation’s freshly revised coverage on seafood sustainability. The policy spans most of Costco’s seafood inventory and entails halting the revenue of twelve sorts of fish linked with severe environmental worries, this sort of as shark, orange roughy, Chilean sea bass and Atlantic halibut.

As nicely, Costco – a significant seafood retailer in the Western Hemisphere — vowed to look for aquaculture certification specifications that help very best procedures and specifically regarding farmed salmon and farmed shrimp, which are two of its greatest quantity products.

“It is crucial that the products we supply our clients are those that we can carry on to present well into the long run and to present responsibly,” stated Jeff Lyons, Costco senior vice president. “Our policy will help us to continue to meet the demands of our buyers, who search to us for large high quality things at excellent worth.”

In response to the chain’s move, the green organisation might move up the charts on the up coming approaching annual Carting Absent the Oceans seafood sustainability ranking because of out this April.

&quotThis new coverage is a sign of tremendous progress, and we are indebted to the 1000’s of Greenpeace supporters who instructed Costco they needed to buy sustainable seafood,&quot stated Senior Markets Campaigner for Greenpeace Casson Trenor. &quotWhile there is nonetheless a extended way to go, we are really pleased with the actions that Costco has used and their ongoing commitments.”

In mild of Costco’s dimension and marketplace share, its new seafood sustainability coverage will have sweeping implications for the market and noteworthy advantages for marine ecosystems, Greenpeace asserted.

&quotCostco’s progress is additional evidence that sustainable company practices and the seafood industry not only can come together, but in simple fact must do so,&quot said Executive Director of Greenpeace USA Phil Radford. &quotUnless we avoid pretending that we can catch, farm, and offer as significantly fish as we like, we will locate ourselves with empty nets and empty oceans.”

Costco’s coverage says the company may possibly even now offer the discontinued species if they are certified by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) – whose standards have provoked issues for Greenpeace as well as some researchers and other environmental teams.

“Hopefully a progressive business like Costco will use its important buying energy to push the MSC to continue to improve and turn out to be the gold regular that we all hope it will be,” Trenor extra.

Greenpeace will now retain concentrating on the canned tuna industry’s effects on fisheries.

“The language in Costco’s revised coverage indicates an awareness of tuna as a problem that desires to be addressed,” said Radford. “We are hopeful that Costco will lead the cost on generating this a far more sustainable sector.”

In August, Costco ceased offering Atlantic cod, Atlantic halibut, Chilean sea bass, orange roughy, shark, swordfish and bluefin tuna – species at the moment facing depletion due to overfishing. Even more, the retailer pledged to get started compliance with Aquaculture Dialogues for salmon and shrimp and spouse with the Planet Wildlife Fund (WWF) to make confident countries such as Thailand abide by these Dialogues.

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By Natalia Actual
editorial@fis.com
www.fis.com