The Seafood Business for Ocean Stewardship (SeaBOS) was initiated in 2016, with a vision to lead a global transformation towards ocean stewardship. Today, SeaBOS announced that the formal science-industry collaboration will wind down, recognising the need for a different approach to lead that global transformation.
The decision reflects both what SeaBOS has achieved as a catalytic initiative, and the understanding that future stewardship efforts will require new forms of collaboration, leadership, and accountability. The member companies remain committed to the SeaBOS vision and goals, and they intend to continue to cooperate, drawing on the relationships, insights, and capacities developed through the initiative for further ocean leadership.
SeaBOS started as a bold idea that some of the world’s most influential seafood companies could help drive change through cooperation, based on, and guided by science. Since 2016, companies that are often fierce competitors have worked together around a shared vision of ocean stewardship. Despite cultural differences and diverse business models, they recognised that the long-term viability of their companies depends on the health and resilience of the ocean and that corporate leadership has a key role to play in addressing ocean challenges.
“SeaBOS has given member companies new tools, relationships, and shared understanding to address some of the most challenging issues in seafood supply chains. That work is not complete, but it is now better understood and must continue through company actions and future collaborations,” says Helene Ziv-Douki, Cargill ANH EMEAI and Global Salmon Leader, and Chair of the SeaBOS Association.
Together with scientists, SeaBOS member companies developed a shared vision for ocean stewardship, agreed on a set of commitments, developed time bound goals, and created a public reporting framework. Substantial progress was made to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, ocean plastics, and the use of critical antibiotics. SeaBOS also helped member companies better understand risks related to illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing (IUU fishing) and labor abuse in their value chains, and ways to identify possible due diligence processes and actions to mitigate those risks. In line with the commitment for a healthy ocean, SeaBOS advocated for global policies to address IUU fishing, to implement a global ban of harmful fisheries subsidies, and to encourage ambitious policy reform in Japan.
SeaBOS has helped shape the agenda for sustainable seafood and ocean stewardship. Over the years, the initiative has contributed to shifting norms in the seafood industry, and has provided inspiration for companies, scientists, and policy makers, as well as other sectors seeking to understand how science-based collaboration can support meaningful systems change.
“I am convinced that companies will remain firm in their commitment to ocean stewardship, and that new collaborations and actions for a healthy ocean will continue to emerge, based on the ocean stewardship vision” says Professor Carl Folke, Stockholm Resilience Centre, and co-founder of SeaBOS.
The idea that powerful “keystone actors” could lead cascading change was first formulated as a scientific hypothesis in a peer-reviewed publication in 2015. The scientists who authored that paper initiated a global dialogue that led to the creation of SeaBOS and have remained closely engaged throughout the initiative.
Over the years, SeaBOS has resulted in more than forty scientific publications, including eight peer-reviewed research articles in high-impact journals. The collaboration has generated new knowledge on ocean stewardship, corporate leadership, supply chain responsibility, and the role of science and industry together, in supporting sustainability transformation.
“Thanks to SeaBOS, science has made a difference for the global ocean, changing the perspectives and priorities of some of the most powerful seafood companies in the world. We did not think this would be possible. It was. Now we need this change to accelerate. The ocean cannot wait, and I hope the coming years will see the emergence of new collaborations which can bring faster and bolder action than we’ve achieved so far. I am excited about the future,” says Professor Henrik Österblom, Stockholm Resilience Centre and Chair of the SeaBOS Fundraising Foundation.
SeaBOS has connected science and industry, wild capture fisheries and aquaculture, and seafood markets across the world. The collaboration has fostered trust, mutual respect, and lasting relationships. With this foundation, companies are now better equipped to deliver results on their stewardship commitments, and scientists have gained important insights on how to engage with industry in efforts to support systems change.
SeaBOS member company representatives
Helene Ziv-Douki
Cargill ANH EMEAI and Global Salmon Leader
Teru Tanaka
Nissui Corporation Representative Director, President and CEO
Steven Rafferty
Cermaq Group CEO
Daisuke Yasuda
Umios Corporation Representative Director, President and COO
Maarten Bijl
Skretting CEO
Sang-Jin Park
Dongwon Industries CEO
More information can be found here on the website including:
SeaBOS Commitments
Impact Report 2025
Impact Report 2023
Progress Report 2022
SeaBOS Science
Contacts:
Professor Henrik Österblom
Chair, SeaBOS Fundraising Foundation
henrik.osterblom@su.se
+46 737 078 816 (Stockholm, Sweden)
Martin Exel
Managing Director
Martin.exel@seabos.org
+61 413 595 532 (Tasmania, Australia)
