Roadmap Explained
Social responsibility is becoming increasingly important to consumers. In addition to environmental sustainability, seafood companies are now also committing to implement responsible business practices throughout their supply chains. However, knowing how to begin—or continue—this opaque, global, collaborative work is challenging.
The Roadmap for Improving Seafood Ethics (RISE) meets companies’ evolving needs by taking the guesswork out of implementing responsible business practices. The RISE Roadmap includes clear, actionable guidance with eight simple steps to build a comprehensive social responsibility program.
The United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights establish the responsibility of businesses to address adverse impacts to human rights. The RISE Roadmap clearly articulates the human rights due diligence-based approach required for this work. With the Roadmap, seafood companies may implement practices to detect, prevent, mitigate, and remediate negative human rights impacts in their supply chains. Risks to business operations will be identified and preempted where possible, including issues identified by outside groups (e.g., journalists or advocacy organizations), operational disruption, and the costs of managing conflicts.
Dive In and Select a Roadmap Step
The RISE Roadmap includes clear, actionable guidance with eight simple steps that companies may take to build comprehensive social responsibility programs.
Why Embark on the Roadmap?
Socially responsible seafood supply chains are not achieved by check-the-box compliance programs but through meaningful improvements like those included in RISE. The Roadmap Steps are designed to help a company begin, expand, or improve its current social responsibility practices, focusing first on fundamental labor rights and building toward decent work for all seafood workers. RISE is aligned with best practices in human rights due diligence that benefit both workers and businesses.
Embarking on a social responsibility journey via the Roadmap will help your company sequence its efforts, strategically invest resources, and ultimately create the greatest positive impact for people.
Optimize Your Company’s Path
Retailers/Brands
A retailer is an entity that sells goods, such as groceries, directly to consumers through various distribution channels, including stores and online platforms (e.g., Walmart, Target, Safeway).
A brand is the name seafood products may be sold under (e.g., canned tuna brands such as Chicken of the Sea, Bumblebee, and Starkist). Retailers may also have their own brands, often referred to as private label products.
Suppliers
A supplier is a company that purchases seafood and sells it to end buyers (e.g., retailers or wholesalers). These companies source, store, process, package, and transport seafood to a variety of buyers. Often, companies will describe those they source from as suppliers, with “tiers” denoting the degree of difference between the companies: “Tier 1” supplier = sells directly to an end buyer, and “Tier 2” supplier = sells to a Tier 1 supplier.
Processors
A processor is a company that modifies or converts fish or other seafood into different forms (e.g. canned, smoked, breaded, filleted, headed or gutted) for additional processing or final consumption.
Producers
A producer is a company that harvests, captures, grows, or otherwise cultivates seafood (e.g., fishing at sea or via aquaculture). The seafood product may be ready for direct consumption or undergo further processing and resale before reaching the consumer.