The Seafood Ethics Common Language Group

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.

We are running a mix of in person meetings and shorter online bite-size SECLG sessions at the moment.

Next meeting

The next SECLG meeting will be in person on Wednesday 10 July 2024 in London. The topic is TBC. For further information, please contact: Karen Green

Previous two meetings

How the seafood supply chain is addressing emerging issues and challenges (5 March 2024). There are complex issues and concerns about labour and human rights issues, across many countries and a wide range of products. This challenges the reputation of the seafood sector and is too big and too complex an issue for any individual company or organisation to tackle on its own. This meeting will be an opportunity to look at some of the initiatives that have been developed, or are developing now, to address these issues. Please look at the presentations:

• Dignity and justice for workers in the global seafood industry. Valery Alzaga, Global Labor Justice-International Labor Rights Forum (GLJ-ILRF). Presentation to come.
• Worker Voice and Partnership: A model for worker-centred due diligence and remediation of labour Issues in the Thai seafood industry. Mia Tucker, Issara Institute
• Addressing issues in the UK catching sector - Europe’s first Worker-Driven Social Responsibility initiative launches pilot to fight the exploitation of workers at sea. Lucila Granada, FLEX and Mike Park, SWFPA.
• Collaborating to understand and address emerging issues in the supply chain. Georgia Worrall, Seafood Ethics Action Alliance.

Shining a light or a snapshot in time - the role of social audits (12 October 2023). This meeting explored the role of social audits, and how they can be effectively paired with true worker-driven approaches and incorporated within a holistic Human Rights Due Diligence (HRDD) process that extends well beyond workplace audits. Please look at the introductory presentations.

• The social audit framework for BAP and BSP certification. David Dietz, Global Seafood Alliance.
• Human rights within global seafood supply chains. Tim Pilch, independent consultant.
• Marin Trust factory standard. Libby Woodhatch, MarinTrust.

SECLG meeting notes

• Driving improvement through effective implementation of ILO 188. (In person) 5 July 2022
• Working conditions in UK fishing. 24 May 2022
• Driving improvements in labour standards. 1 March 2022 
• The impacts of climate change on human rights in fisheries. 30 November 2021
• Mandatory Human Rights Due Diligence (mHRDD). 14 September 2021
• Recruitment challenges for the seafood sector. 10 June 2021
• Standards and at-sea labour practices. 25 March 2021
• Increasing transparency on fishing vessels. 28 January 2021
• Facets underpinning a socially resilient seafood industry. 12 November 2020
• Dynamics around setting and benchmarking at-sea baseline social criteria. 2 September 2020
• At-sea social criteria. 8 July 2020
• ILO 188 compliance: best practice. 27 May 2020

SECLG monthly newsletters

We send monthly emails with a round up of stories, research and projects in the seafood industry. Subscribe to receive our monthly update and meeting details.

Terms of Reference and archive

• We have archived presentations from previous SECLG meetings. These are available from Karen Green.
• Read the Seafood Ethics Common Language Group Terms of Reference (March 2019)

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 access our Social Responsibility in Seafood briefing note 
• For more information and to download Seafish briefing papers, visit our Social Responsibility in Seafood webpage 

Contacts

For further information, please contact: Karen Green