The Seafood Certification and Ratings Collaboration (SCRC) has released an updated version of its environmental data tool, offering insights into the sustainability of global seafood production, it said.

The SCRC unites five global programs working together to coordinate tools and clarify certifications in an effort to increase their impact. Those include the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC), Fair Trade USA, Marine Stewardship Council, Monterey Bay Aquarium and Sustainable Fisheries Partnership.

The new version of the tool complements the UN Food and Agriculture Organization's (FAO) recent State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture report by incorporating broader factors beyond fish stock levels, such as climate change and labor issues, it said.

That includes data on human rights risks; SCRC found an increase in documented labor abuses and significant risk factors across seafood-producing nations. It reported that 95% of assessed countries have not ratified at least one key international labor treaty.

The percentage of countries assessed with evidence of abuses rose from 65% to 68%. In absolute terms, five countries already profiled had new evidence of abuses and four of the countries newly profiled had evidence of abuses.

The percentage of countries assessed with significant risk factors for human rights abuses, namely flags of convenience and evidence of failing to tackle illegal fishing, rose from 16% to 19%.

Chris Ninnes, CEO of the ASC and chair of the collaboration's steering committee, called for responsible seafood companies to take action, advocating for reforms to safeguard workers and ensure ethical supply chains.

"Sustainability is about more than the target species stock, and issues ranging from forced labor to climate change determine whether the fish we eat today will be available tomorrow," he said. "The standards employed by Collaboration members and other contributing organizations take those factors into account, and the Collaboration's data tool presents those analyses in an accessible way."

The data tool integrates information from several certification and assessment organizations. It shows an increase in the share of global seafood production assessed for sustainability, rising from 39% in 2020 to 51% in 2023.