The Social Responsibility Assessment Tool for the Seafood Sector

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The Social Responsibility Assessment Tool for the Seafood Sector, is useful as a diagnostic, benchmarking, or risk-assessment tool for conducting human rights due diligence in seafood supply chains. This resource is meant to be used as a sister tool to a FIP needs-assessment or pre-assessment, and should be applied to assess risks of social issues, uncover critical information gaps, identify areas in need of improvement, and inform the development of a Fishery Improvement Project (FIP) workplan that includes a social element. However, it is important to note, that this can be used as a social assessment for any fishery or aquaculture operation outside of a FIP.

The assessment should be undertaken by an evaluation team with research experience in the social sciences, including human rights and wellbeing protocols. The assessment, may in some cases, require outsourcing or partnerships between environmental, development, and human rights groups. The evaluation team should strive to use a fisher-driven approach, where fishers and their representative organizations should be involved in the evaluation themselves and subsequently thereafter in the design of improvement plans or other types of interventions. 

Authors: Conservation International and over two dozen environmental and human rights NGOs contributed to the development of the tool; this tool was co-produced and is co-owned. The content, in large part, was derived from Certification and Ratings Collaboration’s “Framework for Social Responsibility” and the format closely mirrors the Oceans and Seafood Markets Initiative (OSMI) Rapid Assessment Protocol for FIPs.