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The Seafood Ethics Common Language Group

A group which brings people together to find out more about ethical sourcing and issues concerning labour and worker welfare.

The Seafood Ethics Common Language Group (SECLG) provides a safe meeting space to discuss the key ethical issues faced by the international seafood industry. The group looks at social welfare issues that affect the UK seafood supply chain, whether in the UK or seafood imported into the UK. This covers human trafficking, labour abuses, child labour, debt bondage, forced labour, migrant workers, and modern slavery. It is an opportunity to share new ideas or best practice case studies from around the world.

The group is led by our industry and we take responsibility for running the SECLG. The Group has met twice a year since 2014. The SECLG brings together seafood industry representatives from major supermarket chains, smaller retailers, processors, foodservice and the catching sector.  Other people who attend are not-for-profit voluntary groups, welfare charities, consumer groups, government and social research scientists.

There are generally two meetings a year. The presentations and minutes from the most recent meetings are below. Presentations and minutes from previous meetings are available from Karen Green.

Due to Covid-19 we are running shorter online bite-size SECLG meetings at the moment.

Next meeting

The next meeting will be in early 2022. For further information, please contact: Karen Green

Previous two bite-size meetings

The impacts of climate change on human rights in fisheries (30 November 2021) This meeting looked at the inter-connection of climate change and human rights from a socio-economic, political, cultural and institutional perspective. It focussed on the societal impact of climate change on wellbeing, local communities and migration; as well as looking at the impact of extreme weather on the sourcing of raw materials. Our three speakers were: 

Mandatory Human Rights Due Diligence (mHRDD) (14 September 2021). This meeting looked at how the new mHRDD requirements are, or will, impact businesses, and how the Work in Fishing Convention (c188) is being implemented on UK vessels. We also heard about using the PAS 1550:2017 voluntary code of practice in the due diligence and risk assessment process. See the presentations:

Terms of Reference and archive

SECLG bite-size meeting notes

SECLG monthly newsletters

Further information

Our social responsibility work

  • Social responsibility is a key work area for us. As well as running the SECLG we also support the seafood industry in a number of key areas to help eliminate unethical practices from UK seafood supply chains. To find out more read our Social Responsibility in Seafood briefing note 

Contacts

For further information, please contact: Karen Green

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