13 August 2008
Sydney
An unprecedented number of representatives from the Australian and New Zealand seafood industries and governments will meet later this month in Sydney to help devise new sustainability reporting guidelines.
The Sydney meeting will be held on August 21 and hosted by the Western Australian Fishery Industry Council (WAFIC) in partnership with the Sydney Fish Market. Representatives of Australian and New Zealand industries collectively valued at AUD 3 billion (USD 2.67 bn; EUR 1.78 bn).
The meeting is the latest development in a two-year project led by Seafood Choices Alliance and the Amsterdam-based Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) to help develop sustainability reporting guidelines for the food processing sector.
The global trend in environmental awareness, paired with heightened consumer consciousness, means companies are increasingly being asked to meet high sustainability standards. Many are now seeking to proactively communicate the environmental and social performances of their businesses, and how it relates to their economic bottom line.
Sean Gilbert, GRI Director of Sustainability Reporting Framework said: “At such a critical time for sustainability in the food processing sector, it is heartening to see so many seafood industry representatives coming together to engage with and work towards providing solutions to the pressing issues of the day.”
In order for a reporting organization to understand its influence on people, planet and profit, it must first analyze and report on these impacts. GRI has pioneered the development of the world’s most widely used sustainability reporting framework – the G3 Guidelines - by bringing business, NGOs, labor organizations and other stakeholders together to ensure their feedback is considered.
Over 1500 organizations globally have declared their use of GRI reporting guidelines, including large and small companies within the food processing sector. More than 75 percent of companies in the Global Fortune 100 issue sustainability reports to these guidelines as do over half the firms in the UK’s FTSE 100 index. Adopting the G3 guidelines is voluntary for reporting organizations.
The G3 reporting framework sets out the principles and indicators that organizations can use to measure and report their economic, environmental, and social performance. Taken together, this information is increasingly demanded by consumers, industrial buyers and investment analysts when making decisions about whether or not to buy from or invest in a particular firm.
While a traditional financial report can tell you how profitable a company is at a particular point in time, a sustainability report enables one to look at the value of the company in economic as well as environmental and social terms. A sustainability report helps one understand the true value of a company over the longer term. Signatories to the United Nations’ Principles for Responsible Investment, for example, commit to taking sustainability considerations into investment analysis and decision making processes: the signatories manage over USD 15 trillion-worth (EUR 9.97 trillion; AUD 16.82 trillion) of assets.
Australia is already a global leader in terms of the number of sustainability reports issued by organizations there. By the end of 2007, over 80 sustainability reports had been issued by Australian-based organizations ranking the country in the top five globally.
“Australia and New Zealand have long been global leaders on seafood sustainability”, said Richard Stevens, Research and Development Manager for WAFIC. “The Australian Fisheries Research and Development Corporation alone invests over AUD 30 million a year to ensure sustainability is a top priority. Industry and governments alike welcome the opportunity this workshop provides to engage with Seafood Choices Alliance and GRI to advance this issue that is essential to the future of the seafood industry.”
GRI is committed to the continuous improvement of the reporting framework and its application worldwide through supplements for different industry sectors, in order to ensure their universal applicability. It is within this context that GRI is currently working with a diverse group of stakeholders in developing a Food Processing Sector Supplement, to which feedback from the seafood industry is being sought.
“The GRI workshops are an excellent example of seafood leaders proactively working together to address a critical need – an international tool that frames and guides reporting on responsible practice”, said Mike Boots, Director of the Seafood Choices Alliance. “To maximise the value of this series of international workshops full participation is imperative; the first event in Sydney is setting a fantastic example for the rest of the world to emulate. We are honoured to work with the Australian industry on this project, and thank the Western Australian Fishing Industry Council and Sydney Fish Market for their outstanding support in making it happen".
GRI’s two-year project partnership with Seafood Choices Alliance was initiated after the European Seafood Exposition in 2007.It entails the running of workshops around the world bringing seafood industry leaders together with sustainability experts in order to feed into the development of the Food Processing Sector Supplement. The next workshop will be held in Chicago on September 25. Outcomes from all gatherings will be incorporated into the new guidelines, which will be released in 2010.
Media contacts:
Julia Roberson Seafood Choices Alliance, London, United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0) 77 04 54 83 92
Email: jroberson@seafoodchoices.org
Richard Stevens WAFIC, Perth, Australia
Tel: +61 419 19 55 10
Email: r&d@wafic.org.au
Scott McAusland Global Reporting Initiative, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Tel: +31 (0)20 531 0034
Email: mcausland@globalreporting.org
Notes to editors
- About The Global Reporting Initiative
GRI’s vision is that reporting on economic, environmental, and social performance by
all organizations becomes as routine and comparable as financial reporting. GRI
accomplishes its vision by continually developing, improving, and building capacity
around the use of its Sustainability Reporting Framework. A network of tens of
thousands of individuals from over 60 countries worldwide coming from business, civil society, labor, and professional institutions governs the organization and creates the content of the Reporting Framework through a consensus-seeking process. This
network is open to those who wish to use the Reporting Framework, access
Information in GRI-based reports, or contribute to the GRI mission in other ways, both formal and informal. The GRI framework is the most widely used sustainability
reporting framework in the world.
Website: www.globalreporting.org
- About the Seafood Choices Alliance
Seafood Choices Alliance is an international program of SeaWeb that provides leadership and creates opportunities for change across the seafood industry and ocean conservation community. Seafood Choices is about synergies and identifying creative solutions to long-held challenges. By building relationships and stimulating dialogue, Seafood Choices is encouraging and challenging all sectors of the seafood industry along the road toward sustainability.
Website: www.seafoodchoices.org
- About the GRI / SCA Seafood Workshops
The objective of the workshop is to engage with the wider seafood industry in the development of new guidelines for sustainability reporting in the food processing sector. The new guidelines will provide a tool for the facilitated measurement and communication of economic, environmental and social performance to customers. The new guidance will also support enhanced transparency and information-flow across the seafood supply chain.
Workshops are scheduled to take place in Sydney, London, Chicago and San Diego.
Website: www.seafoodchoices.org/resources/GRI_workshops.php
- About WAFIC
WAFIC was founded over forty years ago to represent the professional fishing industry and ensure security of supply to the 80 percent of the community that buy their seafood. Its corporate mission is to promote a legislative, administrative, economic and social framework to ensure a safe, environmentally responsible and profitable fishing, pearling and aquaculture industry in Western Australia.
Website: www.wafic.com.au