Sustainability in food systems is one of the most significant challenges of our time: how do we do it better and how do we scale are the key questions we must ask. To date, the mainstream certifications for seafood are the result of collaborations among NGOs and industry stakeholders. However, after two decades of work in this direction, further innovation is needed to scale sustainable seafood more rapidly, especially in the context of climate change.

If we take a step back, we should ask ourselves a few important questions. Can sustainability issues in an industry as complex as seafood be solved with a handful of global solutions? Can sustainability solutions be generated with only input from the Western world? While coming up with logical answers to these questions is easy, the current set of seafood sustainability solutions has struggled to acknowledge or address these concerns.

Unfortunately, we have a paradox in sustainable seafood. The markets for sustainable seafood wants simple solutions, but the reality is that making seafood sustainable is indeed anything but simple. We all know the best business models arise through competition, yet we have built a sustainable seafood space dominated by a few large groups. We need to increase competition and provide alternative options that promote innovation in all aspects of sustainability. There are new approaches that prioritize the voices at the bottom of supply chains that need to be promoted. We need to create more inclusive assurance models that are also more cost-effective. In this panel, we will explore some of these new approaches to driving seafood sustainability and how to bring these opportunities to scale seafood solutions including how to buy and brand the stories of seafood, create sustainable seafood advocates in the chef community, new approaches to verification and certification, and the role that technology can play.