The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) has announced new requirements for seafood suppliers and processers including independent audits of labour practices for supply chain companies if a risk of forced or child labour practices is established.
These requirements have been introduced as part of the MSC’s updated Chain of Custody Standard. All MSC Chain of Custody certificate holders will be required to undergo an independent labour audit unless they can demonstrate that they are at “lower risk” of practising forced or child labour.
Dr Yemi Oloruntuyi, head of accessibility at the MSC said: “This update to our supply chain requirements will provide seafood buyers and consumers with greater assurances that companies involved in processing and packing MSC and ASC certified seafood do not employ forced or child labour.”
Risk assessment
To determine if a labour audit is necessary, a supply chain company will be assessed to see what level of risk there is of labour violations occurring during processing, packing or repacking, and manual offloading in the country or countries they operate in.
If a country is considered of lower risk, according to two or more indicators, then the site does not require a labour audit.
These indicators include a Country Risk Assessment Process for SA8000; international Trade Union Confederation Global Rights Index; ratification of five or more UN conventions on forced or child labour, human trafficking or seafood/fishing; and US Department of Labor List of Goods made with incidence of forced or child labour.
Where required, labour audits must be on-site, conducted by an independent third-party social auditor and use one of three labour audit programs recognised by the MSC: amorfi BSCI audit; SEDEX - Sedex Members Ethical Trade Audit and SA8000 Certification from Social Accountability International. In the future, the MSC will also recognise labour programmes recognised by the Sustainable Supply Chain Initiative (SSCI).
Certified companies that fail to address identified labour violations within 30 days will have their MSC certificates suspended.
