The new ASC Farm Standard will substitute the current nine species standards.

ASC launches new farm standard public consultation

Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) has launched the second round of public consultation for the Farm Standard and consultation regarding updates to the Certification and Accreditation Requirements v2.2 as part of the ongoing alignment process which began in 2014.

Interested parties are invited to review and share their feedback through an online consultation which will conclude on May 14, 2019.

Once finalised, the ASC Farm Standard will take the place of the nine current species standards. As part of this revision, the standard has been updated to capture evolving best social and environmental aquaculture practices and streamlined to ensure a clarified, consistent audit process.

The updates will introduce a higher level of coherence by aligning the applicability, criteria and indicators across all species currently eligible for certification.

The introduction of a single farm standard will also allow for a more consistent introduction of new species into the programme, and will strengthen the standards review process as a result of aligned criteria.

Notably, the draft of the Farm Standard includes an update to the 7 Principles in the current standards. All the principles and criteria of the programme have been retained but the requirements have been more efficiently grouped into the following 3 Principles:

• Principle 1 – The UoC operates legally and applies effective business management. It includes criteria that cover legal business operation, effective management and traceability indicators.
• Principle 2 – The UoC operates in an environmentally responsible manner. It will include all criteria related to the environmental performance of the UoC, including species-specific metrics where relevant.
• Principle 3 – The UoC operates in a socially responsible manner. It includes criteria that cover an inclusive set of labour and community interaction indicators.

ASC is in the process of making updates to Principle 2 which is expected to be released for consultation in Q4 of 2019. The release of the final criteria for Principles 1 and 3 is expected in early 2020, with the final version of Principle 2 to follow no later than December 2020.
With this restructuring of the programme, ASC has also taken steps to strengthen the assurance system for social auditing with updates to the Certification and Accreditation Requirements v2.2 (CAR).

The ASC is the only aquaculture certification scheme to be recognised as full member of ISEAL (International Social and Environmental Accreditation and Labelling Alliance), the global membership association for credible sustainability standards whose members must meet internationally accepted best practices.

ASC YouTube Video: Introducing ASC's certification programme

The ASC’s public consultations follow ISEAL’s Code of Good Practice for Setting Social and Environmental Standards guidelines for credible, inclusive and transparent standard setting, which stipulates that stakeholders have sufficient time and opportunity to provide input on the standard and can see how their input has been taken into account.

All comments received during the public consultation period will be considered, included in a written synopsis that will be made publicly available and shared with all parties who have submitted feedback, and will potentially be included in the final standard.
 
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