Public consultation for the first ocean science-based targets

The Science Based Targets Network (SBTN) public consultation is open for comment on its draft technical guidance to equip companies to set the first ocean science-based targets. The public consultation runs from September 10 to October 22, 2024. 

The 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
Provide input for the first ocean science-based targets

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.

Review Guidance

 

Please review the following documents, before providing your feedback.

 

 

Provide Feedback

 

You can either fill in our online Google Form linked below, download our Google Doc from the second link below and upload it into the Google Form without filling out each of the individual form sections, or upload your own document into the Google Form.

Please contact the SBTN with any issues you may have with the form. We welcome and rely on your feedback. Thank you for your time!

 

Public consultation timeline and purpose

This public consultation  –  running from September 10 to October 22, 2024 – marks a critical point in the development of the ocean targets. It is the public’s 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.

 

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.

Go back to Step 3: Ocean targets