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.
Project number:
2023-024
Project Status:
Current
Budget expenditure:
$500,000.00
Principal Investigator:
Alistair Hobday
Organisation:
CSIRO Environment
Project start/end date:
31 Jul 2023
-
29 Jul 2025
Contact:
FRDC
TAGS
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
PROJECT NUMBER
•
2023-204
PROJECT STATUS:
CURRENT
Sailing the marine knowledge landscape: Enhancing the discoverability, accessibility, and usability of FRDC investment
1. To share Fisheries Research and Development Corporation research project data to be made available on the Research Link Australia platform, thereby making it more discoverable, accessible, and usable.
ORGANISATION:
Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC)
PROJECT NUMBER
•
2023-126
PROJECT STATUS:
CURRENT
Environment Social Governance (ESG) framework plan for fisheries and aquaculture
1. To develop an ESG Framework Plan for fisheries and aquaculture covering all sectors (Indigenous, commercial wild catch, recreational fishing, aquaculture).
ORGANISATION:
ERM Australia Consultants Pty Ltd
PROJECT NUMBER
•
2023-111
PROJECT STATUS:
CURRENT
Mitigating threatened species bycatch in gillnet fisheries
1. Comprehensively test two novel mitigation devices (deterrents) to provide industry and managers with scientifically robust tested measures with the potential to be implemented throughout a wide variety of gillnet fisheries.
ORGANISATION:
Charles Darwin University (CDU)
