EXPOSE YOURSELVES: CHALLENGE ISSUED FOR GLOBAL FOOD SECTOR TO INCREASE TRANSPARENCY

Alongside the EAT Stockholm Food Forum, the Global Salmon Initiative (GSI) today announces a challenge to other members of the global food sector to join them in increasing transparency, as part of a drive to accelerate improvements in industry sustainability and future food security.

Stockholm, Sweden – June 13 2016, 07:00 CEST: In an effort to accelerate the food sector's movement towards improved long-term future sustainability, the Global Salmon Initiative (GSI), supported by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and The Sustainable Trade Initiative (IDH), has today announced a challenge to other food sectors to join them in exposing it all when it comes to key sustainability and environmental data.

"Truth is an essential ingredient of healthy change. Transparency not only accelerates change, it also helps drive it in a productive direction," said Avrim Lazar, Principle Consultant to the Global Salmon Initiative. "We all know that we need to accelerate the pace of change if we are going to provide a sustainable diet for the 9 billion people. At the GSI, we have made transparency at the global, regional and company level one of the pillars of our drive to significantly improve sustainability. Our experience has been that by the letting the sun in, it opens the doors to rapid progress."

The Global Salmon Initiative is a leadership group of 12 global farmed salmon companies who are 

committed to improving the sustainability of their operations and providing a healthy and sustainable product. The GSI group has recently published their second annual Sustainability Report which features data across 14 key sustainability and environmental indicators, for all 12 member companies across the past 3 years. The report is available on the GSI website.

"The Global Salmon Initiative (GSI) continues to set a leading example in its latest annual Sustainability Report, which indicates that the number of salmon farms certified globally by the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) scheme has leapt from 5 to 70 in 2015", said Richard Holland, Director of Market Transformation at WWF (Worldwide Fund for Nature). "Importantly, the GSI report enables all stakeholders to follow progress against ASC principles which shows a clear pathway to better production and sets a high bar for transparency that we encourage other industry sectors and platforms such as the Consumer Goods Forum (CGF) to adopt", added Holland.  

'Transparency is not only a means to be open and accountable to your consumers, it is an essential component in building and maintaining trust with your customers - especially when it comes to concerns over food safety or sustainability issues", noted Ted van der Put, member of the Executive Board of IDH.

Lazar, repeating his challenge to other food sectors, added, "we all need to step up to a heightened level of transparency. The naked truth is not always pretty but it will take us where we want to go".

The "expose it all" challenge is issued at today's EAT Forum, where stakeholders from around the world from the fields of health, science, food and sustainability are coming together to discuss how we can transform our food system to offer both nutritious and sustainable food which work in harmony with our planet. 

For more information, please visit www.eatforum.org.  

For more information on the GSI, or to view the Sustainability report, please visit www.globalsalmoninitiative.org/SustainabilityReport.  

ABOUT GSI

The Global Salmon Initiative (GSI) is a leadership initiative established in 2013 by global farmed salmon producers focused on making significant progress on industry sustainability. Today, GSI comprises 12 companies, representing approximately 50% of the global salmon production industry, that are fully committed to realizing a shared goal of providing a highly sustainable source of healthy food to feed a growing global population, whilst minimizing our environmental footprint, and continuing to improve our social contribution.

GSI member companies are Bakkafrost; Blumar; Cermaq; Compañía Pesquera Camanchaca; Empresas AquaChile; Grieg Seafood ASA; Huon Aquaculture;
Los Fiordos; Marine Harvest; Multiexport Foods SA; New Zealand King Salmon and Ventisqueros. GSI companies have a presence in Australia, Canada, Chile, the Faroe Islands, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway and the UK, and make significant contributions to the economies of these respective countries.

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