Can Consumers Understand Sustainability through Seafood Eco-Labels? A U.S. and UK Case Study

Abstract

Abstract:In the United States and the United Kingdom, over the last decade major retail chains have increasingly publicized their efforts to supply sustainably sourced and eco-labelled seafood. Debate exists over the extent of consumer demand for this product. Seafood eco-labels purportedly resolve the information asymmetry between producer and consumer, allowing consumers who care about sustainability to easily find and purchase these products. This paper discusses the idealized model of seafood eco-labelling in promoting sustainability and presents results of US and UK case studies based on consumer interviews and surveys, which found that consumers had often seen one or more seafood eco-labels. Two well-established eco-labels, dolphin-safe and organic, drove these rates of sustainable seafood awareness. These rates are interpreted in the context of consumer's understanding of sustainable. The Sustainable Seafood Movement's efforts to increase the supply of eco-labelled seafood and elaborate corporate buying policies for sustainable seafood are influencing consumer's recognition and purchase of certified sustainable seafood products. However, eco-labels are a means to communicate messages about sustainable fisheries to consumers, not an end. Efforts to educate consumers about eco-labels should be a component of ocean literacy efforts, which educate the public about the need for sustainable fisheries.

Consumer Empowerment in the Digital Economy: Availing Sustainable Purchasing Decisions

“…The findings do not confirm the evidence supplied by other studies on the topic [23,27,[42][43][44][45][46]52]. A possible explanation on this front may refer to the narrower scope of the consumer engagement construct, which only addressed the actual behavior when touching on problems for which there is a legitimate cause for complaint.…”

Consumers’ Willingness to Pay for Sustainable Seafood Made in Europe

“…This result is surprising because the lack of knowledge was frequently purported to be a reason for the lack of interest and preference for sustainable fish (Feucht & Zander, 2015) because consumers might underestimate the consequences of their purchase decisions for or against sustainable products due to their lack of knowledge (Brécard, Hlaimi, Lucas, Perraudeau, & Salladarre, 2009). Different studies highlight the fact that knowledge about seafood seems to be frequently limited even though a generic understanding of sustainability in seafood exists Arvanitoyannis, Krystallis, Panagiotaki, & Theodorou, 2004;Feucht & Zander, 2015;Gutierrez & Thornton, 2014;Schlag & Ystgaard, 2013;Verbeke et al, 2007a). Almeida, Altintzoglou, Cabral, & Vaz (2015) and Honkanen, Olsen, & Verplanken (2005) highlighted that higher knowledge is not necessarily related to more sustainable seafood choices.…”

The Sustainable Seafood Movement Is a Governance Concert, with the Audience Playing a Key Role

“…Aquaculture has its own set of sustainability concerns including pollution from feed and waste and escapes of aquaculture animals management [22][23][24]. This tendency has been conceptualised as a logic model by Alexis Gutierrez and Thomas Thornton [25] (see Figure 1.) Figure 1. Consumer-driven logic for ecolabels.…”

“…Notwithstanding the prevalence of this logic model, some researchers question the efficacy of consumer-oriented research tools [25] and price incentives [26]. An "attitude-behaviour gap" has been used to describe how, in the case of sustainable food consumption, attitudes alone are often a poor predictor of how consumers will behave at the checkout [27].…”

“…Retailers, brands and fishing companies continue to invest in sustainable seafood certification and sourcing. Gutierrez and Thornton [25] assert that seafood ecolabel markets are not driven by consumer demand but by the interactions of social movement organisations, states, consumers and companies. According to Gulbrandsen [33], it is the same situation for forestry ecolabels.…”