Human Rights in aquaculture

ASC manages 11 Species Standards, a Feed Standard and shares a joint Seaweed Standard and Chain of Custody Standard with MSC. These standards were developed through public consultation at different moments and vary in their inclusion of human rights requirements. The ASC Farm Standard will align all requirements into one singular standard.  

All current ASC Standards cover the fundamental rights listed in the ILO Declaration on fundamental principles and rights at work, including: 

• Freedom of association 
• No forced labour 
• No child labour 
• No discrimination 
• Safe and healthy working conditions 

Aspects that align with several other ILO and other conventions include: 

• Fair wages 
• Transparent contracts 
• Decent working hours 
• Fair disciplinary procedures 
• Fair grievance mechanisms 
• Good community engagement. 

The ASC Feed Standard provides the most comprehensive human rights and labour requirements so far. It also includes a Country Risk Scorecard that assigns a social risk level to 184 countries. This guides feed producers on how much due diligence they must carry out in sourcing ingredients from different countries.

ASC has a Social Auditing Methodology (SAM), which requires a full social audit at every initial certification and recertification audit, and again during the certification cycle. The SAM requires that ASC social auditors follow processes as described in ISO 17021-1 and ISO 19011, as well as a set of ASC requirements, which include holding an opening and closing meeting at the social audits, conducting walkthroughs, reviewing documents and records, and a minimum number of private interviews with different personnel. Social auditors are required to have specific qualifications, experience and local knowledge, and ASC also trains social auditors on the specific ASC social requirements. As part of the SAM, ASC has developed a Social Auditing Risk Assessment calculator to determine the level of required audit effort based on several country and farm-level risk factors.

ASC discloses all audit reports and audit results on its website (see Find a Farm page) including for farms that are certified, or that have had their certificates cancelled, suspended, withdrawn, or not awarded, whose certificate expired, failed an audit, or are in an initial audit stage. The audit reports contain information on the nature of nonconformances or grievances and stakeholders can comment on draft audit reports before they are finalised. Both the draft and final versions of the audits are published. The same will apply for feed mills once certified. The ASC GIS mapping portal shows the location of farms across the world and offers additional information about each farm.

The initial ASC Standards were developed with a wide range of stakeholders in the Aquaculture Dialogues. Public consultations remain key in revising existing standards and developing new ones – with efforts made to include all relevant stakeholder groups. Technical Working Groups that advise on new topics for inclusion in the standards also include stakeholder groups. ASC is stepping up its efforts to involve harder to reach groups by working with trade unions, human rights NGOs, and representatives of Indigenous communities in the development of processes and governance structures.

Yes, there are remediation requirements for child and forced labour, and guidance on remediation including timelines and best practices. The latest version of the ASC assurance documents (Certification and Accreditation Requirements, v2.3) that sit alongside the Feed and Farm Standards include updated references to remediation of human rights issues, focusing on engagement of farms to develop and implement effective remediation with oversight from the Certification Assessment Body or other bodies.