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):
Q&A Webinar Topic, Dates, Registration links:
Sea Lice (Salmon Standard indicator 3.1.7 revision) and Fish Health
Monday March 29th (AM & PM)
Wildlife interaction, and Ecologically Important Habitats
Tuesday March 30th (AM & PM)
Energy Use, Water Use, and Biosolids
Wednesday March 31st (PM), Thursday April 8th (AM)
Benthic Impacts, and Salinisation
Thursday April 1st (AM & PM)
Non-native species, & Farm Escapes
Tuesday April 6th (AM & PM)
Provide feedback
We welcome your participation and feedback by completing the survey:
ASC Farm Standard
The ASC Farm Standard
Linked to the ASC Vision, the Scope of the ASC Farm Standard (hereafter “the Standard”) addresses the key negative environmental and social impacts associated with the aquaculture industry. An ASC-certified farm contributes to the ASC Vision by reducing, mitigating or eliminating such negative impacts.
The current ASC species Standards contain 7 Principles, the ASC Farm Standard will have 3 Principles setting effective and credible requirements. The Units of Certification (UoCs) will include various aquaculture production ‘Farm’ systems and some at ‘Processing’ level. The ASC Farm Standard will have production-system specific criteria (where needed/applicable) and species-specific metrics (where needed/applicable).
- Principle 1 (P1): The UoC operates legally and applies effective business management.
- Principle 2 (P2):The UoC operates in an environmentally responsible manner.
- Principle 3 (P3):The UoC operates in a socially responsible manner.
An earlier draft of the Standard (Public Consultation II [March 14 – May 14, 2019]) had focused on the ‘Legal’ (P1) and ‘Social’ (P3) Principles. That round of public consultation also included that of revisions to the Certification and Accreditation Requirement (CARv2.2) document, which notably introduced a new Social Auditing Methodology (SAM) including a Social Risk Assessment tool.
Contact person: Michiel Fransen

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
Spread the word
Help us spread the word! Download the Public consultation Communications toolkit to get information about how to promote the consultation online with sample posts for your social media channels, as well as website and newsletter content.
Consultation period:
- 8 March - 7 May 2021
- Status: Open
Consultation documents III
Documents
Consultation period:
- 14 March - 14 May 2019
- Status: Closed
Public Consultation II
Documents
- ASC Farm Standard Public Consultation Draft 2019
- ASC CAR Public Consultation Draft 2019
- ASC Social Auditing Methodology Narrative Draft 2019
- Annex F - Templates for social auditing
- ASC Social Risk Assessment Calculator
Received feedback
Consultation period:
- Aug. 19 - Oct. 19, 2016
- Status: Closed
Public Consultation I
Documents
Background papers
Received Feedback
Governance
Governance Documents
Documents
Other documents
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