Loblaw Companies Limited (Loblaw) has partnered with WWF-Canada and others to support the common goal of affecting large-scale change that spans across land and sea, to transform the state of the fisheries and bring sustainable seafood back to our table.
As the largest food retailer, Loblaw interacts with one-third of Canadian consumers from coast-to-coast. This places them in a strong position to lead change throughout the entire retail industry. “This includes our commitment to responsible sourcing of seafood sold in our 1000-plus retail locations, by the end of 2013,“ says Melanie Agopian, Senior Director, Sustainability, Loblaw Companies. “Source with Integrity is one of our five corporate responsibility (CSR) principles driving the way we do business, across the entire supply chain,” she added.
As Galen Weston, the Executive Chairman of Loblaw sees it, this commitment to influence market and industry change is more than a business opportunity for Loblaw. The issue of sustainable seafood is something that needs to see immediate change for future development too.
In spite of Loblaw’s market reach, their whole systems approach to sustainable seafood cannot be achieved without partnerships. That is where WWF-Canada comes into play.
“WWF-Canada has provided conservation and environmental technical expertise on sustainable seafood," Agopian says. "They also have a diverse and global network from which to pull additional resources and expertise, and a great deal of experience driving transformational industry change.”
Call to action
The big issue that both partners are working to address is the devastating ecological and economic crisis created by a significant and growing decline in fish stocks. WWF points out that our oceans were once considered an inexhaustible source of food, but due to overfishing and poor management our oceans are now in a state of global crisis.
“The failure to adequately invest in recovery and sustainable use of fisheries negatively impacts its associated environment, social and economic benefits," says Hadley Archer, VP, Strategic Partnerships & Development WWF-Canada. The World Bank and FAO – the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations – estimate that losses from inefficient fisheries amount to $50 billion annually, with the cumulative loss over the past three decades being around $2 trillion. "These numbers represent recoverable losses with exports worth more than $85 billion in 2008, and related economic activity generated in the range of $500 billion per year,” he says.
Closer to home, Atlantic Canada could recover losses estimated at a billion dollars annually with adequate investment in recovery. WWF and Loblaw, together with fishing industry, are working to do just that.
A coordinated response
As a retail giant, Loblaw’s access to marketing tools, global vendor networks, and overall company scope grants unique accessibility to a new market that WWF is not accustomed to. Likewise for Loblaw, being able to harness the expertise that WWF offers has been integral to designing an effective program.
“For WWF, a big advantage of partnering with Loblaw on this important project is that we can actually accelerate the achievement of measurable results, and create a new benchmark on how private sector business can work collaboratively with organizations and groups with complementary expertise – aligned around shared transformational goals”, says Steven Price, Conservation Science Director at WWF-Canada.
When working with government alone to address the overfishing issue, WWF was not seeing sufficient movement. It was clear that WWF had to engage with the private sector if they wanted to see more tangible results.
To illustrate how influential private sector companies are and why they need to get more actively involved in this market transformation: 300-500 companies control 70% or more of the trade of the world’s most essential commodities. "If these companies demand sustainable products, they'll pull 40-50% of production with them", says Jason Clay, Senior Vice President, Market Transformation, WWF-US.
If ten percent of those 300-500 companies were to think differently about how they source seafood, and worked in collaboration with the fishing industry and environmentalists to seek alternatives, a transformation of the market would already be underway.
In order to be a leader in today’s increasingly competitive markets, sustainable business plans and projects influencing environmental platforms can deliver a major advantage. As Canada’s largest food distributor with more than 1,000 corporate and franchise stores nation-wide, the impact Loblaw can have – on consumer attitudes and decisions and as a model for other industries in leveraging their sustainable practices – is enormous.
Measuring success
“Our seafood initiative also brings certified seafood to the Loblaw stores that meet the standards of the MSC (Marine Stewardship Council) for all of their seafood-affiliated products, from fresh to canned fish, and non-seafood products with fish ingredients such as pet food”, says WWF-Canada’s Conservation Director, Steven Price.
MSC standards and certification requirements ensure that only seafood from a certified sustainable fishery is sold with the MSC eco-label and meet best practice guidelines for certification and eco-labeling.
Another integral sustainable seafood collaborator is Loblaw’s Marine Scientific Advisor, Dr. Jeff Hutchings from Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia. Dr. Hutchings has helped in successfully identifying sustainable seafood for Loblaw counters and has contributed insight into the fishing industry and at risk species.
"We live in the country with the longest coastline in the world and our rich heritage in fishing extends back more than 500 years," Hutchings says. "As Canadians, we cannot afford to ignore our collective responsibility to recover the health of what lives in the oceans."
Through the development of Sustainable Seafood Sourcing Criteria, and the expertise of WWF and Dr. Hutchings, Loblaw aims to evaluate the sustainability of species in order to better serve their customers with responsibly sourced and sustainable seafood. Progress updates are captured in both the annual Loblaw CSR Report and Sustainable Seafood Commitment Report.
De-listing at-risk products
Through the sustainable seafood initiative, Loblaw companies successfully identified products they had been carrying that did not comply with MSC standards. Dr. Hutchings’ expertise also allowed Loblaw to identify ‘at-risk’ species, and where and how to make changes to their CoC (chain-of-custody) certified seafood counters.
Since this collaboration, Loblaw has made changes to their seafood counters. In 2009, Shark, Skate, Orange Roughy, and Chilean Sea Bass were delisted from stores. More recently, in 2012, American red snapper was also delisted.
Delisted products do not just disappear from Loblaw’s counters. The goal is to bring Loblaw’s customers along on the journey – to engage, educate, and build new levels of customer loyalty. To make a powerful visual statement to consumers, Loblaw displays their removed at-risk and unsustainable fish with empty containers in the fresh seafood section, with suggested alternatives.
Loblaw is actively shaping a new way of purchasing seafood, one that is sustainable, and promotes knowledge behind the sourcing of fish stock. With the power of collaboration and multiple forces, Loblaw aims to source sustainable products and bring them back to customers in stores once they are confident the sourcing is transparent.
The flexible and collaborative nature of this partnership makes it a successful model for driving positive environmental and economic change. When Canada’s largest grocery retailer commits to healthy oceans and sustainable fishing practices, it is clear that long-term profitability is not at odds with environmental sustainability.
To view the complete collaboration series, click here.
