Case studies – Risk assessments

Under the section “Identify, Collect, and Assess”, the Conservation Alliance for Seafood Solutions – Guidance for Companies on Environmentally and Socially Responsible Seafood provides anonymous real-world examples of how a range of seafood supply chain stakeholders (large food service and retailers, importers, and processors) are identifying and assessing environmental and social risk in their seafood supply chains.  

Although focused on seafood, these can be applied, adapted, or provide inspiration in addressing the climate change and environmental impacts of aquaculture feed and the ingredients it contains.

The environmental, Social, Governance (ESG) risk assessment tool or ESG screen for feed ingredients aims to improve the visibility of aquaculture feed supply chains, allowing stakeholders to identify and address possible ESG risks associated with the many ingredients feed contains.

• It recognizes that without knowing the composition of the feed, it is impossible to know the ESG risks embedded within it. 
• It was developed over a three-year consultation period between GSI members, WWF, and industry feed companies. 
• It can also help companies assess the scalability of potential alternative or novel ingredients allowing stakeholders to make more informed sourcing decisions aligned with their strategic priorities, values, and commitments.
• The tool was initially developed and trialed by WWF and Grieg Seafood and provides a standardized framework for farming companies and other aquaculture supply chain members to engage with feed manufacturers to get a holistic overview of possible risks in the feed supply chain. 
• As a result, it aligns the sustainability asks put to feed manufacturers, making the resulting information comparable across different companies and ingredients. By aligning information requests, it reduces the time taken to request sustainability information by aquaculture supply chain members and feed buyers and the time taken to respond to these.
• Although the tool was designed to support the salmon farming sector, other animal protein production sectors (including those of other aquaculture species groups would also benefit from its use.
• The Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) has also reviewed the tool and will add it as one of its due diligence mechanisms to be part of the ASC Feed Standard certification process.

The tool is composed of the following assessment topics – subdivided into questions associated with each of these:

• Transparency
• Restorative land use and biodiversity practices
• Climate footprint
• Circularity
• Pollution
• Fisheries
• Water consumption
• Fish health and nutrition
• Human nutrition and health
• Basic human rights
• Climate change impacts
• Governance
• Scalability

To create the tool, WWF and Grieg Seafood worked closely with feed suppliers to address the lack of transparency in feed formulation. This process involved navigating complex non-disclosure agreements across a variety of stakeholders so that the appropriate feed information could be gathered while maintaining confidentiality. 

They learned the following ten ingredients comprised the vast majority of feed volume: beans and peas, fish meal, fish oil, guar, rapeseed oil, soybean meal, soy protein concentrate, sunflower, wheat, and wheat gluten.

The tool was originally applied to four ingredients, but after initial testing, this has now been expanded to nine. It will continue to be refined in collaboration with WWF, GSI, Grieg Seafood, other protein producers, and feed manufacturers to support further ESG improvements in the supply chain.

Its ultimate goal is to move from an Excel spreadsheet to a cloud-based platform to reduce any potential human error, streamline the process, and reduce the burden and redundancies for feed manufacturers. 

You can learn more about the aims, development history, and future of the tool by viewing 

• Feed of the Future: Transparent and Traceable – WWF Business Case
• What Gets Measured Gets Managed: Aquaculture ESG Feed Ingredient Risk Tool – World Aquaculture Society Magazine, March edition 2024

You can also contact GSI and WWF

Cargill’s annual ESG reports contain dedicated chapters on soy and provide more details on how Cargill conducts risk assessments for this commodity plus how they deal with farms in non-compliance with their commitment for their South America soy supply chain to be 1) deforestation and conversion-free (DCF) by 2030 and 2) deforestation-free in the critical South American biomes of the Amazon, Cerrado and Chaco by 2025.

For their direct sourced soy supplies from Brazil, they used their records of polygon farm boundaries to calculate their DCF percentage using Brazil’s INCRA-SIGEF (National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform – Land Management System). For direct suppliers who rent land, Cargill’s commercial team identified them and collected data.

Once these farm boundaries were identified, Cargill analyzed historical satellite images from the U.S. Geological Survey and data from the University of Maryland to determine the percentage of soy volumes that came from farms where land had not been converted from native vegetation since 2008 (a date that aligns with Brazil’s Forest Code).

For their indirect supplies, they used the historical data above to calculate the DCF percentage for the full soy sector across every municipality in Brazil. Cargill then cross-referenced the sectoral average with their market share within the local area to determine a DCF percentage for their indirect supply in each municipality.

To determine the total DCF percentage of 94% for Brazil, Cargill used a weighted average for each municipality based on their proportion of direct and indirect supplies using the two methodologies above and then tallied a weighted average for the entire country.

Although Cargill has recently completed polygon mapping for direct soy suppliers in Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay, and Uruguay (see the traceability case study) it was too late to use these in the most recent audit. Therefore, Cargill calculated the DCF percentage based on their market share in each local producing region. In the future, they will use the polygon method for direct suppliers and the sectoral average method for indirect suppliers. 

Cargill’s automated systems also consult lists managed by various government agencies and sectoral organizations that highlight farm violations or noncompliance daily. If one of their suppliers appears on this list it is immediately blocked as well as farms registered to the same person or entity in the state, or those with whom they have a close commercial relationship. 

These affiliated farms cannot be unblocked until Cargill conducts a thorough analysis to help ensure that soy from the violating farm is not being rerouted and sold through an affiliated operation.