Steps and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

Seafood Progress is structured around the six steps of the Common Vision for Sustainable Seafood, a guiding document to help businesses develop and implement sustainable seafood commitments and programs. The Common Vision was developed by the Conservation Alliance for Seafood Solutions, a group of leading conservation organizations that work in partnership with over 80 per cent of North American grocery and food service businesses. These steps include:

To learn more about the steps and access resources related to each step, visit our Information Centre.

We have developed Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for each of the six steps within the Seafood Progress assessment methodology, which are used to assess retailer performance against the steps. These KPIs were developed through collaborative dialogue with sustainable seafood organizations and businesses. The consolidated steps, KPIs, and assessment rubric can be downloaded here.

How We Score

Where relevant, KPIs are broken down into different elements that reflect the different categories of products a retailer may sell. These include some, or all, “Fresh-Frozen”, “Private Label” (meaning the retailer’s own brand) and “National Brand” seafood products. A score is assigned to each of the elements.

Every KPI score is an average of the scores across these elements, unless a retailer has provided volume or value sales data, to weight different product categories. The KPIs for each step are then averaged (but never weighted) to give the final assessment for that step. The final assessment for each retailer consists of their scores across each of the six steps. We do not average or combine these scores, which allows readers to clearly see the score on steps that are a priority to them.

National averages for steps and KPIs are presented as unweighted average scores across all retailers.

Retailer Profiles

We always aim to begin assessments against the KPIs and populate retailer profiles in collaboration with each retailer. In all cases, SeaChoice carries out a retailer’s first assessment using publicly-available information. We consult with the retailer to confirm our assessments and add any further information they make available to us regarding their sustainable seafood commitment and/or procurement activities. If retailers consent to SeaChoice using information they give us that was previously unpublished, this information will be considered ‘publicly available’ in relevant Seafood Progress KPIs.

Through these assessments, a retailer’s profile on Seafood Progress becomes a tool by which they can increase the transparency of their sustainable seafood commitment and procurement. All retailers are provided an opportunity to review their profiles before they are published on the Seafood Progress website. If a retailer chooses not to engage with us, we publish their profile based on our assessment using publicly-available information.

Supporting Improvements in Priority Seafood

Step 6 of Seafood Progress is all about how retailers are engaging in efforts to improve the environmental and/or social sustainability of the seafood products they source. In particular, Step 6 looks at what actions (if any) retailers are taking to influence the production of those products that have known environmental and/or social concerns and are sold in high volumes.

KPIs 6.1, 6.2 and 6.3 are focused on ‘Priority Seafood’ products – products that have high volume of sales in Canadian retail stores and are generally not recommended by the Ocean Wise Seafood Program. SeaChoice’s analysis of Canadian seafood production data, Canadian seafood import and export data, and rankings by the Ocean Wise Seafood Program indicated that farmed Atlantic salmon, imported farmed shrimps and prawns and Skipjack tuna were Priority Seafood commodities.

KPIs 6.4 and 6.5 are focused on the sustainability of Canadian seafood production and look at a retailer’s top two highest-selling SeaChoice Priority Species – species that enter the supply chain via Canadian fisheries and aquaculture operations that have significant sustainability challenges. Note that retailers are asked to identify these species based on their total sales of that species, not just the sales of Canadian sourced products as some retailers do not record this data.

SeaChoice Priority Species include the above Priority Seafoods plus Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua), White hake (Urophycis tenuis), Atlantic herring (Clupea harengus), Atlantic mackerel (Scomber scombrus), Atlantic pollock (Pollachius virens), Atlantic swordfish (Xiphias gladius), Manitoba lakes perch, pike, walleye and whitefish (Perca flavescens, Esox lucius, Sander vitreus, Coregnos clupeaformis), BC rockfish (Sebastes species), and Pacific South Coast Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha). For more information on Priority Species that are produced in Canada, see SeaChoice’s Priority Species page.

The potential actions a retailer could engage in are based on the recommendations in the Conservation Alliance for Seafood Solutions’ Common Vision. One of the decisions that SeaChoice made to operationalize these recommendations for Seafood Progress was to recognize retailers who were preferentially sourcing from the most credible, robust, and transparent eco-certifications. This action will directly support these certification systems and may also provide an incentive for the improvement of other eco-certification schemes. While there are many eco-certifications for seafood, SeaChoice used membership of ISEAL – a quality certification for certifications – as the criteria to identify the eco-certifications to include in Step 6’s KPIs. As of May 2018, the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) and the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) are the only seafood eco-certifications that are full members of ISEAL.