MSC in numbers
Last updated, 24 April 2013
The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) is an international non-profit organisation set up to promote solutions to the problem of overfishing.
Fisheries in numbers
- 303: Fisheries engaged in the MSC program
- 200: Certified fisheries
- 103: Fisheries in assessment
- Another 40 to 50 fisheries are in confidential pre-assessment.
Seafood in the MSC program
- Together, fisheries already certified or in full assessment record annual catches of around 10 million metric tonnes of seafood. This represents over 11% of the annual global harvest of wild capture fisheries.
- The fisheries already certified catch over 7 million metric tonnes of seafood. This is close to 8% of the total wild capture harvest.
- Worldwide, more than 19,500 seafood products, which can be traced back to the certified sustainable fisheries, bear the blue MSC ecolabel. Use our sustainable seafood product finder to see what's available in stores in your country.
The MSC and best practice
The MSC runs the only certification and ecolabelling program for wild-capture fisheries consistent with:
- The ISEAL Code of Good Practice for Setting Social and Environmental Standards, and
- The United Nations FAO guidelines for fisheries certification.
Find out more about how the MSC meets best practice guidelines and what this means
Improving the MSC program - Policy developments
Find out how how the MSC program is improving processes in response to feedback from stakeholders:
Case studies and quotes
Read the stories of the first 42 MSC certified fisheries, with quotes from the fishers.
Fishers’ stories – Net Benefits 2009
Where we are
The MSC has offices in London, Seattle, Tokyo, Sydney, The Hague, Edinburgh, Berlin, Stockholm, Cape Town and Paris. More about our offices and staff.
