Standards & schemes
MSC
In brief
The Marine Stewardship Council certifies wild-capture fisheries against its Fisheries Standard (v3.1; v3.0 was published in October 2022 and updated in July 2024), built on three principles: sustainable fish stocks, minimised environmental impact, and effective management. Assessments are conducted by accredited, independent conformity assessment bodies — MSC itself does not assess — and follow a public process with stakeholder input, published reports, and an objections procedure. Certified fisheries are scored against performance indicators; conditional certification requires improvement actions within defined timeframes. A separate Chain of Custody Standard, on a segregated model, lets certified catch carry the blue MSC ecolabel on-pack, traceable back through the supply chain; both fishery certificates and CoC certificates are publicly searchable. The ecolabel supports a sourcing claim about the certified fishery and labelled product only: it certifies the state of the fishery against the standard, not the general sustainability of the selling brand, and claims beyond the certified scope are not validated by it.
Conditional relationships
A relationship does not mean that the standard proves or validates every use of a claim.
Recognition & legal context
No reviewed law references are published.
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