Can finance contribute to seafood sustainability? This is an increasingly relevant question given the projected growth of seafood markets and the magnitude of social and environmental challenges associated with seafood production. As more capital enters the seafood industry, it becomes crucial that investments steer the sector toward improved sustainability, as opposed to fueling unsustainable working conditions and overexploitation of resources. Using a mixed-methods approach, we map where different financial mechanisms are most salient along a seafood firm’s development trajectory and identify three leverage points that can redirect capital toward more sustainable practices: loan covenants, stock exchange listing rules, and shareholder activism. We argue that seafood sustainability requirements need to be integrated into traditional financial services and propose key research avenues for academic, policy, and practice communities. While our study focuses on the role of finance in seafood sustainability, the insights developed are also of high relevance to other extractive industries.

China is a key player in global production, consumption, and trade of seafood. Given this dominance, Chinese choices regarding what seafood to eat, and how and where to source it, are increasingly important-for China, and for the rest of the world. This perspective explores this issue using a transdisciplinary approach and discusses plausible trajectories and implications for assumptions of future modeling efforts and global environmental sustainability and seafood supply. We outline China's 2030 projected domestic seafood production and consumption through an examination of available statistics, and qualitatively evaluate these in relation to key stated Chinese policy targets, consumer trends, and dominant political narratives. Our analysis shows that by 2030 China is likely to see seafood consumption outstrip domestic production. To meet the seafood gap China will likely attempt to increase domestic freshwater and offshore aquaculture, increase seafood imports, possibly expand the distant water fishing industry, and invest in seafood production abroad.