Alignment: ASC Farm Standard

Standard in development – ASC Farm Standard

The alignment process will lead to a single farm-level standard. The aim is to provide greater consistency and harmonise requirements across all farmed seafood species currently targeted by ASC.

Currently, ASC manages a number of separate farm standards covering different species. They all provide industry-leading, robust environmental and social requirements, but because they have been developed at different times their requirements vary on some of the impacts that are common across aquaculture. The aligned Farm Standard will cover all impact areas in one rigourous standard, which includes species-specific requirements where relevant. This alignment will also allow the ASC to more efficiently expand its reach (e.g. adding production systems or new species) and will facilitate the swifter update to specific metrics.

Open now: Public Consultation

8 March- 7 May 2021: 60-day Public Consultation on the proposed ASC Farm Standard (Principle 2/’P2’)

The current consultation is looking at Principle 2 (P2) –the environmental indicators. Because of the large number of environmental issues covered by ASC standards, these will be divided into two rounds of public consultation in 2021.

Read the Principle 2 draft here

These issues are also currently addressed within the existing ASC species Standards: all of ASC’s 11-species Standards can be found here.

Q & A sessions

We invite you to take part in one of the ASC Consultation Q and A sessions regarding topics addressed in the current Public Consultation (please read the relevant part of the draft Farm Standard first):

Provide feedback

We welcome your participation and feedback by completing the survey:

Go to survey

Consultation best practice

The ASC is the only aquaculture certification scheme to be recognised as full member of ISEAL, the global membership association for credible sustainability standards whose members meet internationally accepted best practices.

The ASC’s public consultations follow ISEAL’s Code of Good Practice for Setting Social and Environmental Standards , which stipulates that stakeholders have sufficient time and opportunity to provide input on the standard and can see how their input has been taken into account.

Next steps

Feedback from both consultations will be used to adapt the proposals. The Farm Standard’s P1 and P3 requirements, covering legal and social indicators respectively, are currently being finalised following feedback from stakeholders and are due to be released this year. The Standard will capture evolving best social and environmental aquaculture practices and be streamlined to ensure consistent auditing is possible.

The next round of public consultation for the remaining P2 indicators will take place in September 2021. After this feedback has been collated and reflected upon, a final round of public consultation on the complete proposed P2 will take place in 2022, with a release later in the year and a target to introduce the P2 requirements on farms in 2023.

Timeline

More information

• Public Consultation on the proposed ASC Farm Standard (Principle 2/’P2’)
• FAQ ASC Farm Standard (Principle 2)