US retail giant Costco has officially revised its seafood sustainability policy, a direct result of a Greenpeace campaign to pressure the retailer to remove “red-list” species and address ocean destruction.
Costco will discontinue sales of 12 unsustainable seafood species and will pursue aquaculture certification standards for salmon and shrimp: two of the chain’s highest-volume seafood sellers.
"This new policy is a sign of tremendous progress, and we are indebted to the thousands of Greenpeace supporters who told Costco they wanted to buy sustainable seafood," said Casson Trenor, Senior Markets Campaigner for Greenpeace USA. "While there is still a long way to go, we are very pleased with the steps that Costco has taken and their ongoing commitments. Unless we stop pretending that we can catch, farm and sell as much fish as we like, we will find ourselves with empty nets and empty oceans.”
Costco, one of the largest retailers in the Western Hemisphere, has agreed to remove 12 species associated with oceans destruction from its shelves, including bluefin tuna, orange roughy, Chilean sea bass and sharks . It has also pledged to seek proper sustainability certification for farmed salmon and farmed shrimp and take a leadership role in the global effort to create a more environmentally responsible tuna industry. Since the launch of the Greenpeace campaign, over 100,000 Greenpeace supporters have sent Costco messages urging the company to defend our oceans, not plunder them. In the April 2010 Greenpeace USA supermarket seafood ranking guide, Costco came in 14th place out of 20.
"Costco’s progress is further proof that sustainable business practices and the seafood industry not only can come together, but in fact must do so," added Sari Tolvanen, Greenpeace International oceans campaigner. “We look forward to working with Costco to ensure the sustainability of its tuna products and to improve the global tuna sector including the rapid implementation of a global network of marine reserves to improve ocean health.”
