Sustainability Labs

Our Sustainability Labs bring all of the elements of our work together to track how the changes in policy and practice being driven by our projects impact other dimensions of the seafood supply chain in order to better understand the mechanisms that drive sustainable and resilient seafood production systems.

Highlights from this work

To protect ocean health while meeting the growing global demand for seafood, Monterey Bay Aquarium works collaboratively with local industry, scientists, governments, and others to tackle the intertwined environmental, social, and economic issues needed to improve the sustainability of seafood production.

The majority of our projects focus on small-scale aquaculture and fisheries which play a critical role in global seafood production. Small-scale producers are vulnerable to poverty, climate change, and economic shocks. They often face barriers to accessing lucrative global seafood markets, providing little incentive to fish and farm in environmentally responsible ways.

For each project, our team engages with local communities to identify the underlying environmental and socio-economic issues in the region. We work with them to develop partnerships, build local capacity, and provide a suite of tools and technology to find and implement solutions for those issues. The end goal is truly sustainable seafood production that supports resilient environmental, economic, and social systems now and in the future.

Until now, little work has been done to track how the changes in policy and practice being driven by our projects impact other dimensions of the seafood supply chain and could support the overall sustainability of the industry.

The Labs are designed to test potential solutions for building the environmental and socio-economic resilience of seafood production systems.

This initiative draws from the London School of Economics and Political Science Just Nature Transition framework and taps into the global movement calling on the finance sector to better support sustainable food production systems.

Each lab will work with local stakeholders to co-design solutions to address environmental, economic, and social challenges. The labs will give small-scale seafood producers better access to the resources, data, and finances needed to implement those solutions and track which solutions positively affect outcomes across eight dimensions needed for sustainability.

How we track impact

This radial chart is a conceptual framework that visually represents each of the dimensions needed for sustainable seafood production: Environment, Biodiversity, Climate Resilience, Community Resilience, Decent Work, Governance, Management Practices, and Economic Stability. Although all the dimensions are connected, they are sorted into three groups in a ring outside of the radial chart: Healthy Ecosystems, Human Well-being, and Economic Viability. Colored bands for each dimension illustrate how impacts will be tracked for different labs.