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MSC Certification and Its Implementation for Japan’s
Fisheries – Its Role and Issues –Arata IZAWA1 and Mitsutaku MAKINO2
1

TRAFFIC East Asia-Japan/ WWF Japan,
3-1-14 Shiba, Minato-ku, Tokyo 105-0014, Japane-mail:izawa@trafficj.org
2
National Research Institute of Fisheries Science, Fisheries Research Agency,
2-12-4 Fukuura, Kanazawa-ku, Yokohama, Kanagawa 236-8684, Japane-mail: mmakino@affrc.go.jp

Abstract
As the fishing industry has a tremendous impact on the marine environment, fisheries management
must not only focus on the management of marine resources, but must also aim to be environmentally
sustainable. The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) - which certifies sustainable fisheries - was created
to provide a market-based set of incentives for better management of fisheries to achieve sustainableseafood production. This paper summarizes the MSC’s history, objectives and current situation andreviews its past researches. Also, the reasons MSC certification has not been achieved in Japan andfuture issues to be investigated are discussed.
Social and cultural factors have a great influence on consumer acceptance and preference forecolabeled seafood. As Japan is the world’s largest importer of seafood, its consumption practices
greatly affect world fisheries, so the characteristics of the Japanese market should be analyzed.
The reasons Japan has not achieved any certification to date are political in nature or due to thecomplexity of its fisheries distribution and fisheries cooperative systems. However, as environmental
awareness of consumers and industry continues to rise, such barriers may be overcome in the near
future. Environmental NGOs will increasingly play a greater role, as dialogue between industry andgovernment is promoted.
Key words: ecolabeling, fisheries management, MSC, seafood certification, WTP

1. The MSC’s RoleThe fishing industry greatly affects the marine
environment. Fisheries catch target species that are apart of the marine ecosystem and profit by convertingthe catch into money. Some fisheries catch non-target
species along with target species, prospectively affecting the biological community. As non-target species
are usually discarded, this may impose an even greater
burden on the marine environment. Fishing practices
such as bottom trawling can physically destroy andalter the marine ecosystem. Not only do fisheries havea direct impact on the environment, they can indirectly
affect the marine ecological equilibrium.
Therefore, fisheries management must not only
focus on the management of natural resources, butmust also aim to be environmentally sustainable.
Although sustainable fisheries management benefits
fisheries in the long run, fisheries tend to pursue
short-term profits, so it is difficult to achieve wellGlobal Environmental Research9(2)/2005:151-156
printed in Japan

managed sustainable fisheries. For example, limiting
the total catch according to a fisheries quota systemmeans giving up the part of today’s possible catch.
Furthermore, since the total catch amount for the next
year is unknown, individual fisheries try to secure
greater amounts of marine resources faster than otherfisheries, and this can be understood as a rational economic activity that aims to avoid short term risks.
Therefore, the costs and risks involved in fisheries
Table 1 Environmental impact of fisheries.
ImpactDirectTarget species

Fishing
mortality

Non-target
species

BycatchBiological

Discard

PhysicalIndirectFood-chain

Habitat damage

Modified from Katsukawa (2003).
©2005 AIRIES152

A. IZAWA and M. MAKINO

management should not be shouldered only by the
supply side, but a market the prices of which are inline with the costs and risks involved must be established. In order to give fisheries an economic incentive for implementing well-managed sustainable fisheries, it is alternative to create high market demand forecolabeled seafood.
The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) was
created by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF)and Unilever, and became an independent non-profit
organization in 1999. The MSC certifies sustainablefisheries by allowing them to carry the MSC logo on
their fishery products. The MSC also certifies members of the supply chain with a Chain of Custody(CoC) so that certified and non-certified seafood dono get mixed up in the processing and distribution
stages. The MSC would lose its credibility if fisheries
were the only parties certified. This traceability issecured by either placing an MSC label on each fish
after landing, or by recording the amount and defectrate of the product’s input and output in a manner thatcan later be verified. Unilever was involved in the
MSC’s establishment because it is one of the world’s
largest buyers of fish and was convinced that responsible procurement of raw materials would lead to sustainable, well-managed fisheries.
Eleven fisheries have been certified by the MSC,
including New Zealand’s Hoki Fishery, Baja
California, Mexico’s Red Rock Lobster Fishery andSouth Africa’s Hake Fishery. Furthermore, 16 fisheries
are undergoing assessment, including British Columbia,
Canada’s Pacific Halibut Fishery, Southern Sweden’s
Sander Fishery and the North Sea Herring Fishery.
There are over 200 MSC labeled products, and thenumber of products continues to rise (Fig. 1). Japan
however has no record to date of selling MSCcertified products to date.

Number of MSC-labeled products

250

200

150

100

50

Mar-04

Dec-03Jun-03

Sep-03Mar-03

Dec-02

Jun-02

Sep-02Mar-02

Dec-01

Jun-01

Sep-01Mar-01

Dec-00

Jun-00

Sep-00Mar-000

Source: MSC (2004).
Fig. 1 Number of MSC-labeled products from March 2000
to April 2004.

2. Recent MSC-Related Research
2.1 Impact on industry
There has been limited research on the MSC, as it
is still a young organization. Therefore, this paper will
review recent research on the MSC’s influence on
consumers and industry, including an analysis of theForest Stewardship Council (FSC) and ecolabeling in
general.
The MSC is intend to benefit to fisheries andstakeholders such as producers, processors, wholesalers, import/exporters, retailers, and food service andrestaurant sectors in various ways.
Firstly, since product certification enables consumers to determine the differences between certified andnon-certified products, profit margins will increase bya price premium added to certified products. According to Roheim (2003), for example, the press releaseon MSC certification awarded to Thames Herring
resulted in a 50% price increase by seafood buyers.
Secondly, ecologically sound management of natural resources will improve the marine environment
and the improved environment may in turn, lead to anincrease in quotas and permits.
Thirdly the stabilization of fish prices brought bycertification can hedge economic risks considerably
for fisheries households (Anonymous, 2001).
Additionally, an increase in market share for certified products is anticipated as consumer demand forecolabeled seafood increases. For example, the OECD
(1997) pointed out an increase in the market share ofecolabeled sanitary paper by Blue Angel from 32% in1986 to 64% in 1993. Blue Angel is now planning
further expansion of its business scope into newdomestic and international markets.i)
Other benefits of MSC certification aside from
economic aspects include promoting a green corporate
image, being a market leader in the fishing industry,raising corporate social values, reducing secondary
costs by raising environmental awareness within thecompany, and ensuring prompt compliance with environmental measures.
However, a high fee must be paid in order toreceive certification from the certification agency. The
certification fee covers mainly the initial assessment
audit and license fees. Furthermore, since traceability
is an important aspect of ensuring that the product has
been separated from non-certified products at every
stage of production, a Chain of Custody (CoC) certification is required in order to be able to apply the MSC
label. Other costs include a surveillance audit fee,costs of implementing new management procedures
and an opportunity cost generated by yield reduction.
If certification costs cannot be covered by pricepremiums even in cases where there is high market
competition for the product, there will be little incentive for producers to pursue certification.
An empirical study of the cost of certification was
conducted by Wessells et al. (2001). The Western

MSC Certification and Its Implementatino for Japan’s Fisheries

Australia’s Rock Lobster Fishery is one of the mostvaluable fisheries in Australia, with an annual export
value of about Aus $370 million (U.S. $185 million).
It involves a fleet of 596 boats (8 m length) and generates direct employment for some 4,000, mostly people
in rural communities. According to Mr. Ross Gould,
Supervising Fishery Manager of Commercial Programs, Department of Fisheries, Government ofWestern Australia, the direct costs of the assessment
process were Aus $200,000 with at least a further Aus$100,000 of in-kind contribution by the industry andthe Department of Fisheries. The subsequent launchand promotion of the MSC certification also added afurther Aus $100,000. The rock lobster fishery operates under a cost recovery regime where fishermen’s
license fees are used to cover the costs the Department
incurs in managing the fishery. Therefore much of thecosts to meet the requirements for ongoing certification will be met through the industry’s annual license
fees. It is anticipated that the next full assessment in2005 will cost an additional Aus $100,000-150,000.
The license fee for the use of the MSC logo is currently set at 0.05% of the sales value at the point oflabeling. This would add a further cost of Aus$185,000.
As seen above, the cost of certification is considerable. However, as observed by Simura (1996) in thecase of the FSC, group certification of several forests
collectively decreased the marginal cost. For this reason, group certification is conducted for small privatecompanies and in developing countries. Also, governments and NGOs will play a greater role in coveringcertification fees in the future.
As for the MSC’s impact on the world trade regime,
there is heated discussion in the World Trade Organization (WTO). For example, if importers with a big
domestic market implement domestic ecolabelingstandards, compliance costs for exporters to fill thestandards is essentially a nontariff barrier (Fujioka,
2001).ii) In that sense, there is strong criticism ofdomestic certification standards as being favorably set
for domestic companies, and ecolabeling has beenfound to be discriminatory – especially to developing
countries.iii) On the other hand, Veena Jha et al. (1999)
indicated that the ecolabel has little influence on tradein the developing countries since ecolabeled products
are mainly traded among developed countries only.
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United
Nations (FAO) published ‘Report of the TechnicalConsultation on International Guidelines for the
Ecolabelling of Fish and Fishery Products from
Marine Capture Fisheries’ in 2004 and it was adopted
at the twenty-sixth session of the Committee on
Fisheries (COFI) of FAO in 2005. The MSC wasinvolved in the development of the guidelines throughthe FAO’s stakeholder consultation process and affirmatively evaluated them (MSC, 2005). The guidelines address the three principal procedural and institutional matters that any ecolabelling scheme should

153

encompass: (1) the setting of certification standards,(2) the accreditation of independent certifying bodies,and (3) the certification that a fishery and the productchain of custody are in conformity with the required
standard and procedures. The Committee also noted
the special circumstances, conditions and concerns
applying to developing countries and countries in transition that required time, financial and technical assistance to develop and maintain appropriate fisheries
management arrangements in order to participate in,and benefit from, voluntary ecolabelling schemes. It
was additionally agreed that direct support towards theoften high cost of accreditation and certification
would also be necessary. WWF is concerned that
small-scale fisheries have the same opportunities toparticipate in the MSC certification scheme as thelarge-scale fishing interests and has developed amethodology for Community-based Certification(CBC), which adheres to the MSC’s Principles andCriteria (WWF, 2005).
2.2 Impact on Consumers
This section reviews the impact of MSC or ecolabels on consumer-purchasing behavior. First of all,ecolabeling schemes raise consumer environmental
awareness. If ecolabels did not exist, consumers
would not be aware of how their consumption activities affect the environment. This is a great role that isendowed to the ecolabel.
The economic influence of the ecolabel relies
heavily on consumer acceptance (Caswell &Mojduszka, 1996). Research on consumer tendencies
to choose ecoabeled products has been conducted for:apples (Blend & van Ravenswaay, 1999), wood(Forsyth, Haley & Kozak, 1999) and clothes (Nimmon& Beghin, 1999). Since a large cost is incurred for
certification, a successful program is dependant upon
how much of an additional cost consumers are willingto pay for certified products (Gudmundsson &Wessells, 2000).
Recent research on consumer preference for Forest
Stewardship Council (FSC) cerfified products showsthat although there were differences among products,
consumers generally showed an interest in certified
products (Kajiwara, 2003). Ishii and Kuriyama (1999)
measured consumers willingness to pay (WTP) for
ecolabeled wood in newly built wooden houses. For a
non-certified house priced at JPY 70 million (price forboth the land and the house), a consumer’s WTP for
1% additional use of certified products was
JPY250,000.iv)
As for seafood certification programs other thanthe MSC’s, Teisl et al. (2002) analyzed the impact of
the Dolphin Safe label on consumer purchasing
behavior. It verified a consumer preference for ecolabeled products, and observed an expanded market
share for ecolabeled tuna products.
According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA, 1998), factors influencing

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A. IZAWA and M. MAKINO

consumer acceptance are credibility of the agency
providing the ecolabel, links between product choices
and environmental impact, and understanding of thelabel’s meaning. However, social and cultural factors
must also be considered. Johnston et al. (2001) expanded on the study by Wessells et al. (1999) and conducted a comparative analysis of the U.S. and Norway.
Based on data from a telephone survey of 6,220 random households (3,100 in the U.S. and 3,120 in
Norway), a Multi-attribute Contingent Choice Model
was applied, measuring the following aspects: (1) if
consumers prefered ecolabeled seafood, (2) which
factors influenced consumer choices and (3) if theirimpacts differed across countries. The results showedthat social and cultural differences greatly influence
consumer preferences for ecolabeled seafood.
One study on ecolabeled milk products has been
conducted in Japan (Sawada, 2004). 1,100 persons
were surveyed by mail on the following factors: theHazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP)
label – a food safety management system that guarantees environmentally safe production processes, theecomilk label – which certifies green production processes (i.e, livestock waste management), and the quality freshness date of food products. The results
showed the order of importance rated by the consumer
to be the quality freshness date as top priority, followed by price and finally the ecolabel. WTP figures
showed JPY 20-36, equivalent to 12%-24% of the saleprice for HACCP, and JPY 14-23, equivalent to
8%-11% of the sale price for the ecomilk label. The
study showed that ecolabels had a significant influence on consumer decisions when purchasing milk.
There have been no quantitative studies on theJapanese seafood market to date. As observed by
Johnston et al. (2001), social and cultural factors
greatly influence consumer acceptance. Therefore,
tendencies of Japanese consumers cannot simply beinferred from the aforementioned two internationalcase studies. Future analysis is strongly anticipated.

3. MSC Implementation in Japan
In 2002, Japan ranked 4th in the world for seafood
capture production at 4.6 million metric tons. Also,
Japan is a major consumer of imported seafood, thevalue of which is ranked number one in the world at
U.S.$ 13.9 billion, while the export value was
U.S.$ 0.8 billion. There is no doubt that the purchasing activities of Japanese consumers greatly impact
the sustainability of world fisheries.
Although there are several well-managed fisheries
in Japan, no system exists for consumers to choose
ecolabeled seafood. Under such conditions, sincevalue-added products by well-managed fisheries cannot be easily sold on the market, producers have little
incentive for managing and conserving fisheryresources. The following factors prevent MSC implementation in Japan:

1. The political context: the Japanese fishing industry
is rather hostile towards environmental NGOs due
to whaling issues and the banning of drift net practices in international waters. They were critical of
the MSC from the onset.
2. Japan’s peculiar seafood distribution system: many
Japanese producers land small amounts of a wide
variety of seafood. Products sold on the wholesalemarket are frequently processed by several small
processing companies and retailers before being
marketed. Therefore, it is difficult to secure theproduct’s traceability.
3. Uncertainty about consumer interest in ecolabeled
seafood: in general, factors which the most influence on Japanese consumer purchasing behavior
for seafood are price, freshness, color, taste andpercentage of fat composition. It is therefore unknown how interested consumers are concerning
the environmental impact of seafood production.
4. The Japanese fisheries cooperative system: according to the institutional framework of fisheries management in Japan, various types of operations andregulations exist within a single fisheries cooperative association (Makino & Matsuda, 2005). Under
such a system, it is difficult to determine whether
certification should be conducted on a specificfishery or on several fishing cooperatives collectively, or if all fisheries of a specific region shouldbe certified (Kawabe, 2005).
However, in recent years, the situation has beenchanging as follows:
1. Promotion of dialogue between the fisheries industry and environmental NGOs will raise awarenessof the MSC’s goal of promoting the sustainable useof fishery resources.
2. Consumer awareness of safe food due to the
Escherichia coli 157 epidemic, avian Influenza(bird flu) and bovine spongiform encephalopathy(BSE) have raised interest among distribution
companies in the traceability of food products, including seafood.v)
3. According to a preliminary survey by WWF Japan,
several retailers have started to show an interest inenvironmentally safe seafood to promote corporatesocial responsibility and improve their company’s
brand image. Some companies are anticipating thepromotion of Japanese MSC-certified products.
In order to contribute to this trend, research on
Japanese consumer preferences for ecofriendly seafood is strongly urged. Topics of research should include measurement of consumers’ price premium for
MSC certification. Comparative analysis among Japanand other countries such as the U.S. or Norway, forexample, would also be promising. In terms of seafood trade, the impact of MSC certification on theJapanese seafood export market, or the impact of import of MSC products, such as Alaskan Pollock fromthe Bering Sea, on the domestic market are also poten-

MSC Certification and Its Implementatino for Japan’s Fisheries

155

tially significant, and should be studied.

Notes

4. Conclusioni) Increased competition due to bearing the ecolabel is limited
to voluntary labeling. Regulatory enforcement would makethe differentiation of ecolabeled products impossible.
ii) Klabbers’ (1999) analysis on forest certification shows ten
factors preventing non-tariff barriers.
iii) Higashida’s (2002) model shows an inducement that canlead to environmental degradation.
iv) According to Kajiwara (2003), none of the anticipated pricepremiums for FSC-certified products or economic incentives for the certified producer were found (Ozanne &Vlosky, 1997).
v) For the relationship between safety and consumer behavior
in the Japanese fishery market, see Yamashita (2003).

The fishing industry can greatly impact the marine
environment and also indirectly influence the marine
ecosystem food chain. Fisheries management must not
only focus on natural resource management, but mustalso aim to conserve the marine environment. However, even if conserving the marine environment conservation may be beneficial to fisheries in the long run,fisheries tend to pursue short- term profits mainly due
to the uncertainty of fluctuations in natural resources
and competition among fishermen. The MSC was created to help establish a market that gives fisheries an
economic incentive to manage and preserve natural
resources. By certifying environmentally wellmanaged fisheries, the MSC differentiates noncertified from certified seafoods on the market.
This paper has focused on the MSC’s history, purpose and current situation, and has reviewed past research on general ecolabeling, and summarized thefactors for MSC implementation in Japan. Politicalfactors, the complexity of Japan’s fishery distribution
system, the level of consumer interest, the high cost ofcertification and the peculiarities of the Japanese fisheries cooperative system are contributing factors toJapan’s lack of certification cases to date. However,such barriers may be overcome as environmental
awareness of consumers and industry increases. It istherefore strongly urged that Japanese consumer’s
preferences for ecofriendly seafood be analyzed andthe results may reduce risks of investment in certifications for well-managed fisheries. Topics of researchshall include: if consumers prefer MSC products inthe actual market and what price premium consumers
are willing to pay. Comparative analysis between
Japan and another country (i.e. U.S. or Norway)
would be interesting. Specific Japanese social andcultural factors influencing consumer choices should
also be analyzed.
The MSC has corresponded to regional culturaldifferences for certification. The MSC’s approach has
been to allow the certification experts to interpret the
Principles and Criteria corresponding to the characteristics surrounding the fishery being assessed. In thatway, variation in regional environmental management
practices can be evaluated on their merits. The
stakeholder consultation process ensures a wide range
of issues to be considered by the certifier. For example,
in the case of the FSC, its standards and regulations
provide generic outlines for forest certification recognizing the importance of regional flexibility and application.
Furthermore, environmental NGOs will be a driving force in promoting dialogue among citizens, industry and government.

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