This initiative can help companies assess the scalability of innovative ingredients, such as those from agriculture.

This week, the Global Salmon Initiative (GSI, by its English abbreviation), in partnership with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), launched an environmental, social and governance risk assessment tool (ESGThe name is environmental, social and governance) for ingredients of fish food, which is one of the first of its kind.

According to both entities, the tool will improve the transparency and visibility of supply chainsenabling stakeholders to better identify and address potential risks. And, they said, they designed this tool to support the salmonid farming sector, but the wider industries of protein productionincluding agriculture - especially through plant inputs -they can also benefit from its implementation.

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GSI and WWF argue that this tool offers a coherent and aligned framework so that the producing companies interact with their suppliers of fish food and thus obtain a comprehensive view of the possible risks in the supply chain. It's just that risks for industries involve loss of biodiversity, climate change, resource use, environmental footprint, health and well-being, nutrition, human rights and governance, among others.

Together with the above, the initiative can support companies to assess the scalability of innovative ingredients, like those of plant origin.

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With this knowledge, according to GSI and WWF, companies can make more informed supply decisions in line with their priorities and strategic values.

Wide and holistic vision

This tool, developed over a period of three years with the advice of the members of GSI, WWF and salmonic Cultivating Nutrition Companies, is one of the first times that common methodology to back up a greater alignment in the compilation of data food is available.

"The supply of food ingredients remains one of the main challenges sustainability in salmon cultivation and food production in general," he stressed. Daniel Miller, who is leading expert in aquaculture of WWF, adding that the surprising amount of unknown information in the supply chains of food ingredients leaves the sector exposed to risks and vulnerabilities not intentional, even for companies that prioritize ethical and sustainable production.

"With this tool, GSI members are implementing a proactive approach to address these risks and identify opportunities to improve the supply chain. One comprehensive and holistic vision supply chains not only mitigates the risk, but also facilitates decisions more informed and strategic"Miller emphasized.

The Director of Food and Nutrition of Grieg Seafood, Tor Eirik Hommesaid understand that the industry needs to improve the level of transparency and traceability in supply chains. "Not only for our knowledge, but also to provide feedback and guarantees to our stakeholders, whether they are customers, regulators, communities or long-term investors, that we supply responsible and sustainable sources“It is,” Homme said. He added: "The development of a common tool so that all producers can make same questions supply chain speed up applications and improve traceability level, ultimately helping accelerated improvements in the sustainability of ingredients used for fish food."

In this line, Daniel Miller added that this tool is not only designed for salmon and trout growing, not even only for aquaculture, as they contemplate that it will have a key impact en all protein production items, and even in food for pets which share many of the same supply chains and risks.

"While GSI has taken the first step in developing and testing the tool, now We will collaborate with other WWF allies to expand its use," Miller said.

While the sustainability manager of Skretting, Jorge Díaz Salinas, argued that the supply of food ingredients from various supply chains hinders the identification and mitigation of all ESG risks current and potential global operations.

"We have made significant progress in recent years to address many of these risks, but we still have more work to be done and our speed must be accelerated. We support the implementation of the ESG tool because it will support us in better identifying what we know and what we do not know about impacts of certain ingredients and, in addressing these concerns, we will improve the transparency in our supply and, ultimately, We will increase our performance", highlighted Jorge Díaz.

Feed Standard

The Responsible Management Board for Aquaculture (Aquaculture Stewardship Council, ASC) has also examined this tool and intends to incorporate it as one of its due diligence to be part of the certification process of the ASC Feed Standard.

In addition to the tool, WWF, in collaboration with GSI and Grieg Seafood, published a case study titled Feed of the Future: Transparent and Traceable. The document describes the inherent challenges the production of fish food, the development of the tool and experience of Grieg Seafood implementing it in your supply chain.

This tool is located in your first version and will be updated as companies begin to use it and collect information about their supply chains. Similarly, the annual modifications will ensure that the tool continue to offer support and fulfill your intended purpose.

All data collected as part of the tool are confidential and are only shared between the fish food supplier and the producer company. By using the tool and identifying potential risks, the aim is to use this knowledge to promoting innovation, stimulating continuous developments in the supply of fish food ingredients for the purpose of reduce the risk ESG and ensure that farmed salmonids continue to be a healthy and sustainable food option.

For more information about this tool, what it covers and what you strive to achieve, download the Feed of the Future: Transparent and Traceable:

Feed-of-the-Future_Transparent-and-Traceable_Business-CaseDownload

About GSI

GSI is a leadership initiative established in 2013 by global producers of farmed salmonids focused on making significant progress in sustainability of industry. At present, GSI is composed of 22 companies committed to achieving the shared goal of providing highly sustainable source of healthy food to nurture a growing world population, while minimizing the environmental footprint and continue to improve social contributions.

The companies that are members of GSI are: Australis Seafoods, Bakkafrost, Blumar, Cermaq, Salmons Camanchaca, Companies AquaChile, Grieg Seafood, Huon Aquaculture, Multiexport Foods, Nova Sea, Salmons Austral, Salmons Aysen, Tassal and Ventisqueros.

Meanwhile, the companies of the guild have presence in Australia, Canada, Chile, Faroe Islands, New Zealand, Norway and United Kingdom.

GSI also has several associate members of the supply chain in the Food and pharmaceutical industries for fish, including Benchmark Holdings, BioMar, Cargill, Elanco, Merck, Sharpe and Dohme (MSD) Animal Health, Pharmaq, Salmofood and Skretting.

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For more information about GSI, visit:

About WWF

WWF is one of the world’s leading environmental conservation organizations and works in almost 100 countries for more than half a century to helping people and nature thrive.

With the support of more than 5 million members around the world, WWF is dedicated to providing solutions based on science to preserve the diversity and abundance of life on Earth, halting environmental degradation and combating climate crisis.

Visit www.worldwildlife.org to get more information and keep up with the latest conservation news by following @WWFNews Social network X and/or subscription to newsletter and news alerts here.

* Credits from the featured photo: courtesy of GSI.