Jongseok (Mark) Seo1
1Marine Stewardship Council, Busan, South Korea
The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) and the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) are international non-profit organizations that have the objective of protecting the oceans and safeguarding the seafood supply for the future. MSC and ASC published the ASC/MSC Sustainable Seaweed Standard in November 2017 and then the certification program was launched officially.
As a result, 6 organizations including individual seaweed farms, cooperatives, and associations have obtained certification and currently distributed certified seaweed products on the market. Interestingly, 4 out of a total of 6 certificate holders are Korean seaweed producers. Therefore, it is very meaningful to understand their interest to engage in the program as well as to identify major challenges they encounter during the certification process.
The ASC/MSC sustainable seaweed certification program is based on multi-stakeholder governance consisting of seaweed producers, research institutes, retailers as well as government and non-government organizations. Hence, these stakeholders’ engagement has a huge positive impact on fishery practice and consumer awareness. In addition, it encourages suppliers to participate in this program by providing market incentives to producers as well as by promoting responsible consumption to consumers.
The number of seaweed farms participating in this program around the world has continued to increase and consumer demand for purchasing ASC/MSC eco-label products has also consistently raised.
For this reason, this study aims to find out whether the certification program will be successful in the Korean seaweed industry through in-depth interviews furthermore identifying the practical advantages and improvements that the certificate holders can obtain from this program.