Aquaculture Stewardship Council

Many of us enjoy eating fish. It’s healthy and nutritious — and an affordable protein for our world’s rapidly growing population.

Today, 33% of wild fish stocks have reached their biological limit, thus seafood from wild catch will not be able to feed the world’s growing population. That is why more than half of the fish eaten around the world now originates from seafood farming, and the share is predicted to increase. The rapid growth of aquaculture has led to badly managed fish farms, water pollution, damage to local environments and poor working conditions. A lot is at stake, given that seafood provides livelihoods and an affordable animal protein for billions of people, especially in developing countries.

That’s why it is more important than ever that seafood farming is done responsibly, with care for people and the planet.

Our mission at ASC is to transform the industry towards environmental sustainability and social responsibility.

In 2010, we launched the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) as an impact-driven NGO. We partnered with the Dutch Sustainable Trade Initiative IDH and WWF Netherlands to make aquaculture more sustainable. We do this by setting strict standards for seafood and farms and deliver high assurance throughout the supply chain.