Benefits of The Tool

The Global Benchmark Tool provides confidence in certified seafood and promotes improvement in seafood certification schemes by recognizing robust and credible certification schemes.

ALL
BENEFITS

The Global Benchmark Tool is valued across the entire seafood sector for the following benefits.

HARVESTERS / PRODUCERS

The Global Benchmark Tool provides harvesters and producers the opportunity to choose a certification scheme best suited for them, while still being recognized as robust in the global market. In turn, working with one certification leads to reduced auditing costs and eliminates redundancies.

PROCESSORS / WHOLESALE / DISTRIBUTION

The Global Benchmark Tool provides processors, wholesalers and distributors with more choice in credible certified seafood. This choice results in greater affordability and flexibility in supply chain, enabling them to diversify their sourcing and thus, improving the supply needed to meet an increasing demand for certified seafood.

Retail / foodservice

The Global Benchmark Tool provides retailers/food service providers with an added level of assurance in their certified seafood sourcing. This assurance creates more choice in the market and ensures confidence in the seafood we source. It also enables more informed and simplified decision making, as well as globally consistent and centralized data to guide your purchasing decision.

NGOs

For NGOs advocating for healthy oceans and marine resources, GSSI provides a global, multi-stakeholder platform for collaboration and knowledge exchange. At the same time, GSSI’s Global Benchmark Tool is helping to improve existing certification schemes and to shape the development of new schemes in line with internationally agreed FAO guidelines.

Governmental and inter-governmental organizations

For governmental and inter-governmental organizations promoting sustainable development for the seafood sector and for those whose livelihoods depend on it, GSSI acts as a leading public-private partnership. GSSI connects governments, industry and other supply chain actors, helping them to meet international commitments, including the UN Sustainable Development Goals 2, 8, 12, 14, and 17.

More about The Tool

Market uptake of the Global Benchmark Tool

GSSI is valued by major retailers and seafood companies worldwide. The below companies and organizations use the Global Benchmark Tool to inform their sourcing policies and accept seafood certified by GSSI-recognized schemes.

GSSI-recognized schemes

Vice President Product Integrity, Ahold Delhaize

Hugo Byrnes joined Ahold in 2006 and was subsequently appointed to the position of Vice President Product Integrity. He is responsible for Ahold Delhaize’s food and non-food product policies, which cover product safety and responsible products. This includes social compliance, animal welfare and environmental issues. Hugo Byrnes has a Dutch Law degree from the State University Leiden, the Netherlands. He is a food lawyer whose career has focused on the food business and in particular on quality management and standardization.

Director of Partnerships, Aqua-Spark

Flavio has spent more than two decades working in responsible aquaculture globally for non-profit, intergovernmental, and for-profit organizations. As Aqua-Spark’s Director of Partnerships, he is responsible for driving the development and execution of a robust partner ecosystem that aligns all stakeholders behind a core vision, while supporting Aqua-Spark’s portfolio, network, and goals.

Prior to joining Aqua-Spark, Flavio worked for IDH, the Sustainable Trade Initiative, overseeing their Aquaculture Program. He was also IDH Vietnam Country Director, establishing groundbreaking public-private partnerships in coffee, tea, and apparel. He founded and ran the sustainability arm of the Vietnam association of farmers and fishers (VINAFIS). He has worked as an expert for over 20 international organizations such as the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), and the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).

Flavio holds an M.Sc. in Aquaculture from the University of Stirling and a Ph.D. in Epidemiology, the study of diseases in populations, from the University of Liverpool.

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