Since June of last year, SFP has been promoting its Target 75 initiative to the global seafood industry, trying to impress upon key stakeholders that fulfilling the goals of T75 by getting involved with fishery or aquaculture improvement projects, or joining an SFP-facilitated supply chain roundtable (SR) can lead to improved sustainability.
Now, we’re adding another reason to join the movement toward the T75 goals: It allows participants to fulfill the aims of not one but two initiatives at the same time.
By now, nearly everyone has learned of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), designed to promote a healthier and more equitable way of doing business worldwide. This is, of course, an entirely separate initiative run by an entirely different body, and yet SFP is displaying the SDG logo on our website and related T75 materials.
What’s the connection? Simply put, it’s Goal 14. That’s one of the 17 goals that make up the SDG initiative. Titled “Life Below Water,” Goal 14, the UN says right on its website, is about protecting the global marine ecosystem. “Careful management of this essential global resource is a key feature of a sustainable future.”
We couldn’t agree more, and under Goal 14, among its list of “Targets,” is this text:
By 2020, sustainably manage and protect marine and coastal ecosystems to avoid significant adverse impacts, including by strengthening their resilience, and take action for their restoration in order to achieve healthy and productive oceans
And this:
By 2020, effectively regulate harvesting and end overfishing, illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing and destructive fishing practices and implement science-based management plans, in order to restore fish stocks in the shortest time feasible, at least to levels that can produce maximum sustainable yield as determined by their biological characteristics
This mirrors SFP’s Target 75 goals almost word for word. Many companies, such as Walmart, have already pledged their commitment to the SDGs, and working toward T75 goals is a great way to demonstrate that commitment.
Like T75, the SDGs encompass a wider movement that has united industry and NGOs in delivering practical measures for change. Interested companies can register as SDG partners and use the SDG logo in their sustainability marketing, right along with Target 75, giving framework and structure to their ongoing sustainability work.
Visit the UN SDG website to learn more about the SDGs in general, or Goal 14 in particular. To learn more about Target 75, visit the T75 page on our website, or contact us at info@sustainablefish.org and get on board today!