ASC Appoints Four New Members to Supervisory Board

The Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) is pleased to announce that Aldin Hilbrands, Meghan Jeans, Scott Nichols, and Ling Cao have joined the ASC Supervisory Board.

“I’m excited that Ling, Scott, Aldin and Meghan have joined the board of the ASC,” said Chris Ninnes, CEO of ASC. “We look for talented, exceptional individuals to expand our capacity to provide an effective programme for responsible aquaculture and we are fortunate to have found four outstanding additions to our board.”

“Their expertise will be an enormous advantage in our mission to transform the aquaculture industry. The combination of academic, industry and global business insights they bring will be key to our ongoing efforts to meet the growing demand for responsibly farmed fish, and to communicate the value of our certification programme.”

Aldin Hilbrands

Aldin Hilbrands is the Technical Director of FSSC 22000, an agency created by the Foundation for Food Safety Certification to help businesses effectively manage food safety issues. He also serves as the Director of Aquaculture with IDH, the Sustainable Trade Initiative.

Aldin previously worked for Royal Ahold and has served in many different capacities on boards and working groups of leading organisations such as the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI), British Retail Consortium (BRC), International Featured Standards (IFS), GlobalG.A.P., Global Social Compliance Program (GSCP), Business Social Compliance Initiative (BSCI), European Animal Welfare Platform (EAWP), Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), Marine Aquarium Council (MAC), and recently co-founded the Global Seafood Sustainability Initiative (GSSI).

Aldin earned a Master’s Degree in Animal Husbandry, Aquaculture & Fisheries from Wageningen University.

Meghan Jeans, J.D.

Meghan Jeans is the Director of Conservation at the New England Aquarium in Boston, Massachusetts where she oversees work related to seafood sustainability, ocean policy and marine protected area management. She also serves as an advisor to the Fair Trade USA, the International Sustainable Seafood Foundation (ISSF), and the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC). Previously, Meghan directed the Fisheries Leadership and Sustainability Forum at Stanford University.

An environmental lawyer, Meghan worked in fisheries and marine wildlife conservation for Ocean Conservancy, the Marine Fish Conservation Network, the Conservation Law Foundation and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). She also served as an attorney and policy advisor in Kauai, Hawaii and the British Virgin Islands.

Meghan attended Colby College where she received a B.A. in Biology and Environmental Science. She earned a J.D and Masters of Studies in Environmental Law from Vermont Law School.

Scott Nichols, Ph.D.

Scott Nichols is the founder of Food’s Future, a consultancy dedicated to providing economically and environmentally sustainable food for an expanding world.

Before founding his own consultancy, Scott worked at DuPont, where he led the project to develop Verlasso, a new brand of farmed salmon produced with a low dependence on forage fisheries, developed in a joint project with AquaChile. Verlasso became the first ocean-raised farmed salmon to achieve a Seafood Watch “good alternative” ranking. Previously, he worked extensively on biodiversity projects in Africa and South America.

Scott earned both his B.S. in Biochemistry and his Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Metabolism from the University of California at Los Angeles, and is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School Advanced Management Program.

Ling Cao, Ph.D.

Ling Cao is a Research Scholar at the Center on Food Security and the Environment at Stanford University. She is trained as an agronomist and environmental scientist, and has focused on interdisplinary research at the interface between the sustainability of food and natural systems.

Ling’s dissertation quantitatively assessed the sustainability of emerging shrimp farming systems and technologies, with a focus on applying these results to producers and consumers in China and the US. She is primarily working on issues related to aquaculture, fisheries, and food security in China.

Ling completed her Ph.D. in Natural Resources and the Environment at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.