Governance

Stichting Global Sustainable Seafood Initiative (GSSI) is incorporated as a foundation under the laws of the Netherlands. Governed by a Steering Board representing the full seafood value chain, companies, NGOs, governments and international organisations – including the FAO –, GSSI promotes sector-wide collaboration to drive forward more sustainable seafood for everyone.

GSSI charter 2022

gssi deed of incorporation

Steering Board members

Trent Hartill (Co-Chair)

Vice President of Fisheries and Sustainability, American Seafoods

Dr. Ingrid Kelling (Co-Chair)

Assistant Professor of Sustainable and Ethical Seafood, Heriot-Watt University

Friðrik Friðriksson

General Counsel, Brim

Han Han

Executive Director, China Blue Sustainability

Gert le Roux

Aquaculture and Fisheries Specialist, Woolworths South Africa

Marcelo Hidalgo

Chief Operating Officer – COO, Fishing Industry Association in Papua New Guinea

Nianjun Shen

Senior Fishery Officer in the Fisheries and Aquaculture Division, FAO

Lisa van Wageningen

Program Manager Aquaculture, IDH, Sustainable Trade Initiative

Sévrine Bethy

Food Safety and Responsible Sourcing Manager, Sodexo

Matt Thompson

Aquaculture Programs Manager, BalanceBlue Lab, Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life, New England Aquarium

Kelley K. Bell

Social Responsibility Division Director, FishWise

Francisco Aldon

CEO, MarinTrust

Nuno Cosme

Chief Sustainability and CSR Officer, Nueva Pescanova Group

Trent Hartill

Vice President of Fisheries and Sustainability, American Seafoods

Trent is Vice President of Fisheries and Sustainability for American Seafoods. In this role he focuses on regulatory and legislative actions that affect the company, and the Alaska pollock or Pacific whiting fishery in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest. He also coordinates the fishery, social and labor certifications for company as well as sustainability initiatives for the North American catcher processor sector. Prior to working at American Seafoods, Trent was worked as a fisheries biologist for Alaska Department of Fish & Game, managing commercial salmon, crab and groundfish fisheries. In addition, he was as alternate on the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, coordinating the State’s policy positions on federal fisheries.

Friðrik Friðriksson

General Counsel, Brim

Friðrik is a lawyer, living in Kopavogur, Iceland. He works as Brim’s General Counsel, giving him a broad advisory role within the company. He has worked within fishing management, HR, collective bargaining, labour issues, certification and corporate matters for almost 20 years – most of that time within the fishing industry. Prior to working for Brim, Fridrik worked for Fisheries Iceland for ten years on variety of projects, participating in public committees and other public responsibilities on issues related to fisheries management and business environment of fishing companies.

Gert le Roux

Aquaculture and Fisheries Specialist, Woolworths South Africa

Gert oversees Woolworths’ Fishing for the Future seafood sustainability programme and works closely with their international and local seafood supply chains to implement best management practices and continuously improve sustainability outcomes, including taking climate change action. Gert holds a master’s degree in Livestock Industry Management: Aquaculture from Stellenbosch University. He has more than 20 years’ experience in the seafood sector, co-founded an abalone ranching company and has in the past consulted to government institutions, non-government organisations and private companies, mainly in Africa.

Lisa van Wageningen

Program Manager Aquaculture at IDH, Sustainable Trade Initiative

Leading impactful initiatives, Lisa collaborates with businesses and civil society to drive sustainable trade in global value chains. Specializing in coalition-building, she focuses on reducing the environmental footprint of (tropical) aquaculture companies and addressing living wage gaps. With a Master's in International Development Studies and dual Bachelor's degrees in International Relations and International Organization, and Religion Studies, Lisa combines academic prowess with practical experience, exemplified by her research on the ASC's Standard for Responsible Shrimp Farming during her tenure at Wageningen University.

Sévrine Bethy

Food Safety and Responsible Sourcing Manager, Sodexo

Sévrine joined Sodexo Group in 2007 as a Quality Manager to monitor the portfolio of suppliers in France and rapidly started to work closely with the Group Corporate Responsibility Department on sustainability initiatives to improve supply chains social and environmental impacts. Since then, she has contributed to driving and implementing the Sodexo Responsible Sourcing roadmap by ensuring the sourcing of healthy solutions and ingredients, fostering social equity and protecting and restoring the natural ecosystems. She is from the Caribbean and has an engineering degree in food safety and quality applicable to food industry.

Matt Thompson

Aquaculture Programs Manager, BalanceBlue Lab, Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life, New England Aquarium

Matt has extensive experience collaborating with industry, NGOs, and other stakeholders to promote environmentally responsible aquaculture practices throughout the global seafood and marine hydrocolloids industry. Through his work at the BalanceBlue Lab at the Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life, he has helped set certification standards for environmentally responsible aquaculture, helped the Aquarium’s corporate partners develop environmentally responsible supply chains, and mentored startups with innovative solutions to aquaculture’s biggest challenges through the BlueSwell bluetech incubator program. Matt has a degree in Marine Science from Southampton University (UK) and a Master’s degree in Aquaculture from Stirling University (UK).

Kelley K. Bell

Social Responsibility Division Director, FishWise

Kelley leads social responsibility for FishWise, advising companies and collaborating across the sector to build resilient supply chains that uphold international labor standards. In addition to the GSSI Steering Board, she sits on the Consortium for Social Risks in Seafood, the Seafood Working Group, the FAO Technical Working Group, the MBA Social Sustainability Advisory Group, and advises the Food Marketing Institute's Sustainable Seafood Committee. Prior to FishWise, Kelley served 14 years as Global V.P. of Social and Environmental Impact at Driscoll’s. In her free time, she serves on the board of the Resource Conservation District of Santa Cruz County.

Francisco Aldon

CEO, MarinTrust

Francisco Aldon has been with MarinTrust, from its early development within IFFO (the marine ingredients organisation), to becoming the CEO of MarinTrust in 2020. With over 15 years of experience in the food sector, specialising in marine ingredients, Francisco has unique expertise in responsible sourcing, sustainable production practices, and digital traceability in the marine ingredient supply chain

Nuno Cosme

Chief Sustainability and CSR Officer, Nueva Pescanova Group

Nuno Cosme leads the company’s sustainability agenda, driving the transformation of business models and operational strategies to ensure transparency and accountability in ESG reporting. His efforts position Nueva Pescanova as a leader in responsible and sustainable seafood production. Originally trained as a Marine Biologist (PT), Nuno holds a PhD in Sustainability Engineering (DK) and an MSc in Environmental Engineering (DK). He specialises in sustainability assessment of products and processes, with expertise in life cycle assessment, environmental performance metrics, and strategies to reduce environmental footprints while fostering growth and long-term business resilience.

CeDePesca

Encourage good practices in small-scale fisheries through co-management.

CeDePesca are working on a confirmation of a Co-management Commission in Panama have begun data collection through voluntary logbooks by fishers.

It is an ongoing experience where we are discussing and resolving together how to recover the diminished resources that make our livelihoods. We really thank CeDePesca and Seafood MAP for their help on this process.

Ernesto Vargas

FENAPESCA (National Artisanal Fishers Federation)

The Philippines and Indonesia - Asian Seafood Improvement Collaborative

Providing improvement-oriented programs to smallholder producers and fishers to improve their social and environmental practices for better international markets while improving livelihoods and building resilient communities.

This aquaculture project seeks to engage smallholder shrimp farmers to help them improve their efforts towards environmental, social, and gender equality sustainability targets. ASIC provides improvement programs to allow for a step-by-step continuous journey for smallholder farmers to comply with the ASIC Shrimp and Social and Gender Standards. The program offers verification of sustainable practices at no cost which is then leveraged to provide direct market access to buyers. ASIC fisheries project is working to finalize its program while providing support to existing fisheries programs in the Philippines and looking to pilot its program soon.

The social and gender components are a new area that we have not yet heard before and through this program, our awareness has increased - which extended to farm management, household, and to the community level.

Smallholder Farmer

Indonesia

Uganda - Deutsche Gesellschaft fϋr Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH

Ensuring food security and reducing poverty by increasing fish supply and income

The Responsible Fisheries Business Chains Project (RFBCP) in Uganda is concentrating on sustainable fisheries management of Nile Perch on Lake Victoria and Lake Kyoga. Currently, GIZ-RFBCP is drafting selection criteria that will be used to identify producers to work with. The status of such businesses will be ascertained at the beginning and where points of weakness are identified in regards to sustainability measures. GIZ-RFBCP will work with producers to validate their sustainability measures and help them register on the Seafood MAP.

China - China Aquatic Products Processing and Marketing Alliance and China Blue Sustainability Institute

Optimizing the industrial layout, conserving fishery resources, and protecting water ecology to meet the growing consumer demand for high-quality protein and to provide producers with new sustainable practices.

CAPPMA and China Blue have been working with scientific research teams, producers, purchasers, and other stakeholders over the span of this project. In close cooperation, a large amount of research has been carried out and suggestions have been made for the optimization and next development of the Seafood MAP registration model based on China's characteristics and reality.

In China, there are many types of aquatic products available for residents to consume, and the production model is diversified. Reflecting on our pilot work so far, we know more time is needed to optimize, but we are looking forward to establishing a concrete buildout of the Seafood MAP platform to move our work forward and improve.

Janelle Dong

CAPPMA

Papua New Guinea - Fishing Association of Papua New Guinea

Exposing our progress and performance with seafood supply chain partners and finding common ground for collaboration to move towards certification.

The prawn and lobster fisheries management in the area is aimed at preserving the fishery for the traditional inhabitants, with strict limited entry for non-inhabitants. We aim to move all fisheries and aquaculture operations toward sustainable certification, we need Seafood MAP as a path to educate our fisher how to collect data properly, report and assess it.

Seafood MAP has increased the collaboration between the National Fishery Authority and the producers in the area with respect to data collection, measuring performance and reporting against the robust Seafood MAP criteria based on FAO and SDG indicators.

Marcelo Hidalgo

Sustainability Director, FIA PNG

Aquaconnect and IDH, the Sustainable Trade Initiative

Working towards more efficient resource use by collecting and analyzing farm and disease data.

The project focused on improving disease data collection and analysis, by linking Aquaconnect to a lead aquatic epidemiologist. The objective of the project is to provide farmers better information on diseases with the ultimate aim to improve resource efficiency. The Aquaconnect team tested the Seafood MAP registration form for seafood producers, as well as the self-evaluation form for their customers.

Through the IDH-Aquaconnect program, we were able to promote sustainable practices among the farmers communities and set several shrimp production benchmarks. One of the key highlights is that we have redesigned our data architecture to capture individual and population-level symptoms to support the shrimp epidemiology study.

Sudhakar Velayutham

Project Manager, Aquaconnect

Indonesia - UNIDO

Strengthening the quality and standard compliance capacity of small and medium-scale enterprises to improve market access to both domestic and international markets.

The programme supports the country to align the demand and supply of quality services required by markets through enhancing quality infrastructure and services, strengthening producers and value chains, and raising a culture for quality.

The Indonesian fisheries sector has great potential for both capture fisheries and aquaculture, with small fishers and farmers dominating the sector. Small scale fishers and farmers usually have limited access to markets, technology, information, finance, and public services. Helping them to improve their access to these services will ultimately improve their livelihood that could incentivize sustainable fishing and farming practices.

Ita Sualia

Chief Operations Officer, UNIDO

Ecuador - Sustainable Shrimp Partnership and IDH, the Sustainable Trade Initiative

Supporting SSP members to achieve their goals and supporting small and medium-scale farmers to achieve SSP through the establishment and coordination of an improvement program.

Over the course of the project, twelve farms qualified for the SSP criteria of zero antibiotics, ASC certification, minimal environmental impact, and full traceability. Currently, the SSP focuses on a better understanding of their carbon and water footprint by joining the IDH Aquaculture Working Group on Environmental footprint. The SSP team tested the Seafood MAP registration form for seafood producers, as well as the self-evaluation form for their improvement program.

The improvement program allowed us to support small shrimp farms to demonstrate accountability by improving their environmental and social performance and it demonstrated that SSP members are committed to the highest levels of transparency by being the first shrimp producers in the world to adapt blockchain traceability for shrimp

Pamela Nath

Director, SSP

Mozambique - Pescamar and Nueva Pescanova

Improve maritime fishing training in Mozambique to ensure local generational replacement of fleet masters and resilience of fishing communities

The project is a public-private initiative that transfers knowledge from the Atlantic Maritime Fisheries Institute of Vigo (Spain) to the Matola Fishing School (Mozambique) funded by AECID and the collaboration of Pescamar and Nueva Pescanova. To date it has allowed improving the school´s curricula, and its equipment and has incorporated students to work at Pescamar.

Seafood MAP will give visibility to the work that Pescamar is doing to contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals, in this case highlighting its collaborative work to improve fisheries education.

Jose Joaquin Rodriguez

General Manager, Pescamar

Hugo Byrnes

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.

Flavio Corsin

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.

Governance

Steering Board members

Trent Hartill (Co-Chair)

Dr. Ingrid Kelling (Co-Chair)

Friðrik Friðriksson

Han Han

Gert le Roux

Marcelo Hidalgo

Nianjun Shen

Lisa van Wageningen

Sévrine Bethy

Matt Thompson

Kelley K. Bell

Francisco Aldon

Nuno Cosme

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Trent Hartill

Vice President of Fisheries and Sustainability, American Seafoods

Friðrik Friðriksson

General Counsel, Brim

Gert le Roux

Aquaculture and Fisheries Specialist, Woolworths South Africa

Lisa van Wageningen

Program Manager Aquaculture at IDH, Sustainable Trade Initiative

Sévrine Bethy

Food Safety and Responsible Sourcing Manager, Sodexo

Matt Thompson

Aquaculture Programs Manager, BalanceBlue Lab, Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life, New England Aquarium

Kelley K. Bell

Social Responsibility Division Director, FishWise

Francisco Aldon

CEO, MarinTrust

Nuno Cosme

Chief Sustainability and CSR Officer, Nueva Pescanova Group

Encourage good practices in small-scale fisheries through co-management.

Providing improvement-oriented programs to smallholder producers and fishers to improve their social and environmental practices for better international markets while improving livelihoods and building resilient communities.

Ensuring food security and reducing poverty by increasing fish supply and income

Optimizing the industrial layout, conserving fishery resources, and protecting water ecology to meet the growing consumer demand for high-quality protein and to provide producers with new sustainable practices.

Exposing our progress and performance with seafood supply chain partners and finding common ground for collaboration to move towards certification.

Working towards more efficient resource use by collecting and analyzing farm and disease data.

Strengthening the quality and standard compliance capacity of small and medium-scale enterprises to improve market access to both domestic and international markets.

Supporting SSP members to achieve their goals and supporting small and medium-scale farmers to achieve SSP through the establishment and coordination of an improvement program.

Improve maritime fishing training in Mozambique to ensure local generational replacement of fleet masters and resilience of fishing communities

Hugo Byrnes

Vice President Product Integrity, Ahold Delhaize

Flavio Corsin

Director of Partnerships, Aqua-Spark