Sustainability outcomes of aquaculture eco‐certification: Challenges and opportunities

Abstract

Both the aquaculture industry and eco-certification of aquaculture have grown significantly over the past 20 years, but the extent to which aquaculture eco-certification is effective in creating positive environmental and societal outcomes is uncertain.Therefore, a scoping review of research on the effectiveness of eco-certification in improving aquaculture sustainability outcomes, based on systematic search and inclusion criteria, was conducted. Challenges in producing sustainability outcomes through eco-certification were identified, including (1) choosing which components of sustainability to reflect in eco-certification criteria, (2) the risk of limiting improvements in sustainability by labelling a product 'sustainable', (3) accounting for different spatial scales of aquaculture effects, and (4) designing and applying sustainability criteria that work across different local environments. Potential approaches to these challenges include applying an ecosystem services framework to the identification of issues that could be addressed by eco-certification criteria, supporting continuous

Nutrient loading from a sustainably certified aquaculture operation dwarfs annual nutrient inputs from a large multi-use watershed, Lake Yojoa, Honduras

“…Despite the industrial aquaculture operator’s obtaining multiple top sustainability standards (as of 2023), their nutrient contributions have unequivocally contributed to the rapid ecosystem deterioration observed in Lake Yojoa in recent decades (Fadum and Hall 2022). This highlights the ways in which the monitoring required for sustainability certification for net-pen aquaculture is maladapted to the ecosystems hosting the aquaculture operations or else fall short of sufficiently preventing environmental degradation (Boyd et al 2005, Rector et al 2023). As such, certifying agencies are not only failing to deliver on their promise of environmental stewardship and failing to protect the interests of local communities and the investments made by aquaculture farm operators, but they are also creating a production pipeline that misrepresents that product to the consumer.…”

Horticulture Irrigation Systems and Aquaculture Water Usage: A Perspective for the Use of Aquaponics to Generate a Sustainable Water Footprint

“…These ecological impacts are the over usage of natural resources due to aquaculture production, being two of the biggest problems the high use of freshwater [101] and the water pollution because of untreated wastewater discharges into the environment [102] which is causing a high impact for the ecosystem [103]. Inland aquaculture food production has a high freshwater consumption rate and has a high dependency on nearby natural water resources [104] and requires nearby water streams, lakes or groundwater deposits [105].…”

Antimicrobial resistance: a concern related to streptococcosis in tilapia farming

“…Furthermore, Streptococcus transmission can occur between different fish species, wild and farmed fish, within the same aquatic environment, since wild fish and farmed fish have been found to be infected with the same bacterial strains (Nguyen et al 2002;Kim et al 2007;Amal and Zamri-Saad 2011). The search for sustainable and effective alternatives to fight the pathogen is a fundamental key element for the continuous growth of tilapia farming, as they provide less environmental impact, better waste management, and make intensive fish production environmentally friendly (Rector et al 2023).…”