Development of the EAFI (Ethical Aquaculture Food Index); a Sustainability Decision Support Tool for SE Asia Professor Jason Weeks, Dr Francis Murray, Professor David Little

Asia Europe SEAT Project EC funded project Focus on Asian aquaculture species exported to Europe Creating evidence base that support sustainability standards and policy Develop the EAFI as a tool for decision makers

Project Scope 4 species from 4 countries Particular focus on the main export species from each country Whole value chain approach, looking beyond the farm

Project Structure No.Work Package Name 1 Project management 2 Scoping and systems overview 3 Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) 4 Environmental models 5 Social and economic dynamics 6 Food safety and public health 7 Contamination issues 8 Key values in a broader ethical framework 9 Enhancing food values through action research 10 Transparency & utility of trade information 11 Policy development and implementation 12 Dissemination Feeding directly into the EAFI

What is the EAFI Ethical Aquaculture Food Index

Selected EAFI Case Studies PangasiusVietnam ShrimpThailand ShrimpChina Shrimp and PrawnBangladesh SEAT’s 4 countries and 4 species present 48 different scenarios. SEAT project will present 4 specific case studies in detail

Evidence based decision support tool primarily for international seafood buyers and certifiers Incorporates environmental, economic, social and ethical data Assesses and scores the sustainability of an aquaculture commodity, beyond the farm level Specific to the 4 SEAT countries What is the EAFI

SEAT work packages generated data and identified species and country specific indicators Indicators developed into a tiered, hierarchical, iterative framework Simple tool, becoming more complex only where necessary Utilises a weight of evidence approach to make decisions What is the EAFI

Key Features of the EAFI as a tiered iterative hierarchical framework Tier 0 – simple assessment of the national value chain landscape Tier One – qualitative assessment of landscape by questions Tier Two More questions leading to semi-quantitative decisions Tier 3 More questions leading to more quantitative decisions Value chain landscape EAFI ? Decision making EAFI ? Decision point at each tier

How do I use the EAFI? Step through from Tier 0 Decision point at each tier. You can exit at any tier if available information is specific and you can satisfy the indicator/ answer the question If moving to more quantitative and specific tiers then EAFI facilitates improvements in knowledge and techniques

The value chain landscape (Tier 0) - product Nutrients out? Chemicals in? Nutrients in? Chemicals out? Product quality? Feed in? Welfare? Community? Ethics? Disease? Processing?

Value Chain Landscapes – Tier 0

Types of questions All questions within the framework have a graduated range of answers or indicator of sustainability. Significant use of the actual project data collected and used via an interrogational approach Links to all models ERA Aqua, nutrient, GIS, LCA etc. within the framework; toolbox approach Development of bias and weighting towards ethics and sustainability Mixture of detailed and yes/ no questions dependent on tier – different questions with greater complexity of answers at higher tiers.

How is the EAFI weighted? Currently under development (expect finished product - November 2013) Biased towards ethical/ sustainable values of producers and European consumers Undergoing Delphi process as we speak – three iterations of testing with end users

“The maths bit” Normalisation Aggregation Monte Carlo simulation Bootstrapping Weighting

What the output may look like

LCA incorporation into the EAFI TierEAFI-LCA description Type of analysis 0Landscape of value chainNo 1 Strict and clear criteria per species, per country and per farm-type, like “no feed from …”; “no on-site (diesel based) electricity production”; etc. Qualitative criteria 2 Screening: Farm or farming from existing SEAT LCA work for 4 indicators: global warming, acidification, eutrophication and fossil resource depletion (maybe to combine with screening LCA excel results for feed inputs to farms) Quantitative LCA 3Detailed: New LCA for a new farm – not in current SEAT LCA database – or for an “improved” farm from the existing LCA database for 4 indicators: global warming, acidification, eutrophication and fossil resource depletion Quantitative LCA

Feedback to date A range of aquaculture standards setters/ certifiers have been consulted and been positive about the EAFI potential and the (risk) framework approach Buyers also tested; main comment is to keep it as simple as possible All have liked very much the inclusion of ethics and the whole value chain approach into the EAFI process

Summary Independent iterative process that is evidence based and focussed on ethics and sustainability Easy to use by non experts Not an accreditation scheme but a first consideration Next steps..... Now encouraging feedback on how you would use the EAFI Development of EAFI is moving toward worked case studies, weighting, and refined presentation of robust database.

Thank you Jason Weeks (EAFI development)