Producers

Stakeholder

Because producers bring seafood into a supply chain, good practices by producers—and incentives to maintain those good practices—play a fundamental role in improving working conditions and upholding a socially responsible seafood industry.

What is a producer?

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.

Roadmap Steps

Commit

Set time-bound commitments that meet or exceed the commitments of buyers. Be transparent about progress and challenges.

Align commitments and improvements with those of key buying companies (i.e., high volume, long-term buyers).
- Act in good faith to meet commitments and, when challenges arise, clearly and proactively communicate those challenges to key buyers.
Provide staff (e.g., planning and operations managers, captains, and other relevant crew, contractors, and labor recruiters) with adequate time to meet requirements outlined in the commitment.
Provide at-sea operations, especially distant water fisheries such as tuna, with additional time and support to implement and verify requirements as needed. See also Decent Work at Sea Foundation page for more guidance.
Until robust verification can occur at sea, continue to utilize port visits to engage workers, iterate best practices for conducting port interviews with workers, and confirm commitments are met to the fullest extent possible.

Learn

Continuously learn, educate, and get buy-in from workers and stakeholders on the value of social responsibility at your company and in your supply chain.

Use RISE to learn how to take a human rights due diligence approach to improving supply chains.
Participate in pre-competitive efforts and multi-stakeholder initiatives that support industry-wide adoption of aligned goals and practices, reducing the likelihood of divergent human rights objectives.
Inform vessel, processing facility, and other seafood workers about their human and labor rights in the workplace and the company policies and practices related to these rights.
Assign one or more staff members to learn about, inform improvements to, and lead social responsibility efforts to positively impact workers across company operations.
Join a growing community to support industry-wide adoption of improved social responsibility practices

Assess

Collect and share data regarding products, farming or catch region, and working conditions.

Document company processes to improve social responsibility and mitigate risks.
Align data collection with the data required by key buyers.
Develop systems to store and easily access data so that information can be readily taken in from sourcing companies and conveyed to buyers.
Track instances of worker grievances (e.g., questions to human resources, complaints through trade unions) as they may reveal risks for labor abuse, and resolve worker grievances internally.

Build Capacity

Work with other producers sourcing similar seafood (e.g., wild-caught fish versus farmed) and the companies purchasing that seafood to implement good working conditions and human rights due diligence processes that can be sustained.

Partner with local human rights and civil society organizations to support worker engagement mechanisms.
Encourage collective bargaining and freedom of association for workers at your company, or alternative forms of engagement where not legally permissible (e.g., worker committees).
Ensure safe and legal working conditions, living conditions, and payment systems in company operations, and comply with relevant laws, codes of conduct, and seafood worker contracts.

Collaborate

Partner with experts to effectively improve working conditions.

Partner with and support civil society organizations that protect and advocate for workers’ rights in seafood and other seasonal jobs that may share a workforce.
Explore the RISE Community to learn about local civil society organizations working on improvements in your company’s regions of interest.

Remediate

Producers can implement practices to remediate worker grievances, and illustrate to buyers the true cost of producing goods responsibly.

Investigate and remediate worker grievances, including setting funds aside for corrective action plans, remediation, repatriation, remuneration, and the provision of any other necessary resources as applicable.
- Work with buyers and other companies in the supply chain to co-develop and support the grievance process.
Track remediation outcomes and settlements.
When improvement opportunities are identified, embed effective solutions into management systems to prevent reoccurrence.

Iterate

Regularly review progress and make continuous improvements over time.

Continue to review, understand, and improve the efficacy of current policies, commitments, and practices, including:
- A need to reassess salient human rights risks, taking into consideration newly available public or supply chain data, legislation on human rights, or global initiatives.
- Any additional actions your company might take given its size and resources.
- Any ineffective measures your company can cease to implement.
- Actions that your company may undertake alone versus with other stakeholders, especially if new collaborations have formed.
Create a schedule and cycles for review to ensure consistency and progress.
Use RISE to explore resources and guidance and implement best practice.

Communicate

Share information and progress with all stakeholders, particularly buyers.

Communicate regularly regarding your company’s efforts with buyers, such as distributors, suppliers, retailers, brands, food service, or restaurants.
Report on progress towards company commitments and goals annually.
Share learnings and challenges along the way.