Politics of the Plate: How Sustainable and Who Decides?

Leave it to Greenpeace to get American seafood retailers and their advocates up in arms.

Earlier this week, the National Fisheries Institute (NFI), an advocacy group for companies that deal in fish and shellfish, sent a letter to its retail members (which include many national grocery chains) saying that a forthcoming report from Greenpeace, which promises to rank the country’s retailers according to how well they do at sourcing sustainable seafood, is a “boldfaced attempt to intimidate retailers.”

The environmental organization responded by saying that the NFI was orchestrating “a campaign to preemptively end dialogues between major grocery retailers and Greenpeace in the United States,” according to a report by Sustainable Food News (which is only available by subscription).

Greenpeace has come up with its own Red List of 22 aquatic species that are not sustainably harvested. The list is the toughest of several published by environmental organizations. It not only includes all the usual suspects (Atlantic cod, farmed and wild Atlantic salmon, Chilean sea bass, bluefin tuna, sharks, tropical shrimp, swordfish) but also Alaska pollock and hoki, species that the reputable Marine Stewardship Council has listed as sustainable. (For what it’s worth, the list of sustainable seafood that I find easiest to use and most scientifically accurate is put out by the Monterey Bay Aquarium. You can download a pocket guide for your region.)

But what has the NFI seething is that Greenpeace is using the Red List to take aim at the purveyors’ overall sustainability records, in effect urging consumers not only to “Take a Pass on Chilean Sea Bass,” but to take a pass on stores that sell it and other embattled species.

This Greenpeace campaign is modeled on one that was rolled out in the United Kingdom a couple of years ago. After having one of its flagship stores surrounded by angry demonstrators, Morrison’s—which is the country’s least sustainable fishmonger, according to Greenpeace—promised to clean up its act.

Greenpeace’s American Red List is due out in June. That’s not a whole lot of time. I can understand why the NFI worries about the fate of its members.