The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) is pleased to announce Kerry Coughlin, Regional Director, Americas will participate in a panel discussion at the Certification Consumption and Change Conference on May 24 in Washington D.C., that will bring together thought leaders from social enterprises, leading brands, and certifying bodies to discuss and plan the future of ethical certification.
Ms. Coughlin manages the operation, growth and success of the MSC’s sustainable fisheries certification, commercial partnerships and marketing programs in North and Latin America, as well as the Russian Far East. She also serves as a member of MSC’s global Senior Management Team, and participates in the organization’s management and strategic development worldwide.
Attendees of the Certification Consumption and Change Conference will hear a conversation between Ms. Coughlin, Jennifer Martin, Executive Director for the Center for Resource Solutions (Green-e), and Han de Groot, Executive Director of UTZ CERTIFIED. The format of the conference allows attendees an extended period to question the panelists following a moderated discussion.
The Certification Consumption and Change Conference will take place May 24th at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. The conference will bring together 150 representatives from top brands that source certified ingredients and eco-label their products, leading ethical certifiers, government agencies and NGOs, and the service providers that make reporting and compliance possible. Conference attendees will enjoy a full day of panel discussions that will shape the future of ethical certifications.
To find out more or register to attend this conference, go to: http://bit.ly/i0RJ6W
About the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC)
The MSC is an international nonprofit organization set up to promote solutions to the problem of overfishing. The MSC runs the only certification and ecolabeling program for wild-capture fisheries consistent with the ISEAL Code of Good Practice for Setting Social and Environmental Standards and the United Nations FAO guidelines for fisheries certification. The FAO “Guidelines for the Eco-labeling of Fish and Fishery Products from Marine Capture Fisheries” require that credible fishery certification and ecolabeling schemes include:
- Objective, third-party fishery assessment utilizing scientific evidence
- Transparent processes with built-in stakeholder consultation and objection procedures
- Standards based on the sustainability of target species, ecosystems and management practices.
The MSC has offices in London, Seattle, Baltic, Japan, Asia Pacific, Scotland, The Netherlands, Spain, Germany, France and Southern Africa.
To date, 248 fisheries are engaged in the MSC program with 104 certified and 144 under full assessment. Another 40 to 50 fisheries are in confidential pre-assessment. Together, fisheries already certified or under full assessment record annual catches of close to seven million metric tons of seafood, representing more than 12 percent of global capture production for direct human consumption. The fisheries already certified catch nearly four million metric tons of seafood—more than seven percent of the total global capture production for direct human consumption. Worldwide, more than 9,000 seafood products, which can be traced back to the certified sustainable fisheries, bear the blue MSC ecolabel. For more information, visit www.msc.org.
