Sustainable seafood: Understanding current stakeholder perspectives

Abstract

While sustainability is a topical buzz word for the seafood industry, with a recent Google search on the term ‘sustainable seafood’ scoring over 7.6 million hits, the current literature indicates a lack of consensus on what sustainability means in relation to seafood, particularly when considering the perspectives of the various stakeholders involved, which span governments, NGOs, the seafood industry (producers, processors, middle men and service providers such as retailers), and consumers. This paper reviews the current literature and identifies how each stakeholder group defines sustainability in relation to seafood. Results highlighted several sources of confusion, ambiguity and conflict in the field, including gaps in current research. These results provide an understanding of the various stakeholder perspectives as a starting point for developing strategies by different stakeholder groups