Ocean Hub Public Consultation – Science Based Targets Network

Public consultation for the first ocean science-based targets

The Science Based Targets Network (SBTN) public consultation was open for comment on its draft technical guidance to equip companies to set the first ocean science-based targets from September 10 to November 12, 2024. The consultation provided the public with the opportunity to provide input into the Network’s multi-stakeholder process to ensure the finalized guidance for companies is as robust, clear and practical as possible.

The draft guidance is developed by the SBTN Ocean Hub, led by WWF and Conservation International with partners including The Nature Conservancy, FishWise, the Marine Stewardship Council, Sustainable Fisheries Partnership, and UNEP FI.

Learn more about the public consultation below or by watching a recording of our webinar, which took place on September 17. View the webinar slides here.

Watch webinar recording

Three targets focus on seafood value chains, addressing corporate impacts from both wild capture fishing and aquaculture:

Target 1: Avoid and Reduce Overexploitation covers wild fisheries, helping companies avoid reliance on commodities derived from overexploited stocks and engage in seascapes and jurisdictions to improve fisheries conditions and reduce overfishing.
Target 2: Protect Structural Habitats covers aquaculture and wild fisheries, helping companies avoid and reduce impacts on structural habitats (e.g. coral reefs and seagrasses) in marine and transitional environments.
Target 3: Reduce Risks to Endangered, Threatened, and Protected Marine Wildlife from Fishing Impacts covers wild fisheries, addressing impacts to endangered, threatened, and protected (ETP) marine wildlife species from wild capture fishing.

Draft Guidance for Public Consultation

The following documents were open for public comment from September 10 to November 12, 2024.

Expanding SBTN’s portfolio to include ocean

When released in 2025, the ocean targets will expand SBTN’s existing portfolio of environmental targets, which currently includes land and freshwater, with biodiversity guidance integrated throughout the methods. Before setting targets, companies must first use SBTN’s methods to holistically assess and prioritize their environmental impacts. This initial assessment phase ensures that companies set targets where they have the greatest impact, ensuring their actions play a key role in halting and reversing nature loss.

Why ocean science-based targets matter

Covering over 70% of our planet, the ocean supports global food security and livelihoods, regulates the global climate, and produces half of the oxygen we breathe. But current pressures on the ocean’s health pose great risks to economies, communities and nature.

Integrating ocean targets into science-based targets will elevate corporate responsibility by ensuring companies address the significant environmental impacts of their ocean-related activities including industrial fishing, helping to protect and restore critical ocean ecosystems within a clear, measurable framework.

Building on existing and emerging sustainability frameworks, seafood certification systems and initiatives, these first science-based targets for the ocean aim to be a significant step forward in corporate ambition, complementing land and freshwater guidance and enabling companies to address impacts to nature and biodiversity across all realms.

Firmly rooted in a mitigation hierarchy that directs companies to avoid and reduce their impacts on nature, these targets intend to go further by providing pathways for companies to engage in critical ecosystems and with local stakeholders to deliver on regenerative, restorative, and transformative solutions in ocean systems, including those that underpin broader issues of coastal resilience and that are in line with a nature-positive future.

Seafood represents 17% of global animal protein, and provides over 20% of average per capita protein for 3.3 billion people worldwide (FAO 2022). Fish biomass is projected to decrease by 3-25% by the end of the century in low and high climate warming scenarios, and structural marine habitats; live coral reef cover has decreased by over 50% since the mid-1800s and 100-300 million people in coastal areas at increased risk due to loss of coastal habitat protection (IPBES 2019) such as coral reefs and seagrass bedsrespectivelySeafood production – including wild capture fishing and aquaculture – is a significant driver of nature and biodiversity loss in the ocean. As global consumption of marine and aquatic foods continues to rise, it is imperative to ensure that commercial activity on the ocean does not cause irreparable harm to ecosystems and resources that billions of people around the world depend on for food and livelihood.

In addition to the moral imperative to act, companies that set science-based targets for the ocean to reduce their impact and engage in protection and restoration efforts will be frontrunners in managing the significant risks and opportunities related to their environmental impacts and dependencies. Healthy, resilient marine and coastal ecosystems can lead to stronger supply chains, secured supply of product, reduced business costs, and benefits to workers and their communities.
While certifications focus actions on reducing impacts within a commodity supply chain, science based-targets encourage action beyond the company’s direct supply chain to drive restoration and transformation at a system level. The 5-step SBTN process will provide a broader view of a company’s environmental impact beyond the practices identified in certification standards. Certification programs are widely used to increase the environmental and social performance of commodities. Certification standards contain numerous practices and outcome-based metrics to guide the mitigation of negative impacts on the environment and social systems – on which commodity production depends. Companies can leverage certifications, which can help provide supply chain visibility and insight on production and management practices within sourcing geographies. Certified sources often have data that can help companies in their target setting journey with SBTN, instead of relying on general or industry averages, as SBTN complements existing certification standards.
Between September 10 – October 22, SBTN welcomes input from external stakeholders that could inform the finalization of the draft methods. This includes companies, financial institutions, consultancies, industry associations, NGOs, scientists and academics, and policy-makers. Due to the technical nature of this content, stakeholders with expertise in sustainability, environmental risk management, fisheries, environmental, and social science, marine ecology, and conservation are appreciated.
SBTN’s Ocean Hub has developed the V1.0 ocean methods over the past two years. The Ocean Hub is co-led by WWF-US and Conservation International and with a steering committee composed of The Nature Conservancy, Sustainable Fisheries Partnership, FishWise, Marine Stewardship Council, and United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative. Their work has been funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and Walton Family Foundation.

The Ocean Hub guidance has undergone a multi-stakeholder consultation process including informal consultations with companies and consultancies, primarily through SBTN’s Corporate Engagement Program with over 110 companies, as well as with representatives from the scientific community and civil society through a formal internal consultation, before proceeding to this public consultation.

In addition, the methods and tools were tested for feasibility, clarity, and ambition during a four month long pilot in 2024 with four companies with materiality in the ocean and seafood systems.

As part of SBTN’s governance model, the ocean methods will be submitted to an Expert Review Panel (ERP) following public consultation. The ERP provides a recommendation on whether the methods are fit for publication by assessing it against technical criteria to understand whether the guidance will lead to positive environmental and societal outcomes, when companies apply the methods correctly.
Science-based targets for nature, which these ocean methods are part of, focus primarily on enabling companies to assess and set targets on environmental impacts occurring within their direct operations and upstream value chains (one component of Scope 3).

It does not currently address environmental impacts occurring in companies’ downstream value chains. As we expand the scope of the guidance in subsequent releases, environmental impacts in companies’ downstream value chains will be considered.
At a high level, companies should adopt each of the three ocean science-based targets depending on:

The materiality of specific pressures generated because of the company’s activities

The sector of the company

The size of the company

The impact of the company in terms of overexploitation of wild seafood stocks, production of farmed seafood, impacts to structural marine habitats, and risk to endangered, threatened, and protected species.

The draft guidance includes decision trees for each of the targets to enable companies to establish whether targets are a) required, b) recommended, c) not required, d) not applicable.

Version 1.0 ocean methods are specifically designed for companies that produce or procure seafood, including fish and aquaculture companies, seafood processors, wholesalers, and retailers. Future guidance will expand ocean methods so that they are applicable to companies across the Blue Economy, such as those in offshore renewable energy, shipping, coastal development, and tourism.

Go back to Step 3: Ocean targets