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Seafood Ethics Action Alliance

The Seafood Ethics Action Alliance brings businesses together to ensure seafood supply chains are ethical. Find out who is involved and what they do.

About the Seafood Ethics Action Alliance (SEA Alliance)

The SEA Alliance was established by seafood businesses in 2018. It provides a platform for industry to agree best practice solutions, to respond to ethical issues in the supply chain and to enable pre-competitive action.

It does this via meetings, information sharing between members, and where needed, the creation of working groups to work together on the required actions. We provide the secretariat for the group. 

This work reflects the PAS 1550:2017 Code of Practice on Exercising due diligence in establishing the legal origin of seafood products and marine ingredients. It also takes into account:

  • The British Retail Consortium's Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing Advisory Note (2015)
  • The International Labour Organisation's 188 Work in Fishing Convention and other appropriate instruments.

SEA Alliance activities build on the work of the Seafood Ethics Common Language Group. Follow the link below to find out more about the Group.

SEA Alliance participants

The SEA Alliance includes processors, retailers and food service businesses. You can take part in alliance activities if you are a commercial market organisation based in the UK which sources seafood nationally or internationally.

To fully participate you need to commit to positively engage in pre-competitive action, adhere to competition law and to maintain the confidentiality of discussions.

The SEA Alliance uses the knowledge and expertise of the Seafood Industry Alliance and the British Retail Consortium to push for change.

SEA Alliance Steering Committee

A steering group has been formed to 

SEA Alliance meetings

Meetings are generally held twice a year after the Seafood Ethics Common Language Group meetings. The presentations and minutes from the most recent meetings are below. Presentations and minutes from previous meetings are available from Karen Green. 

Presentations from SEA Alliance meetings

Notes on SEA Alliance face-to-face meetings

SEA Alliance policies and activities

In May 2021, the SEA Alliance was awarded a grant from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation to support its work, increase industry leadership and encourage positive change in human rights issues across the seafood supply chains of UK companies. This funding creates an opportunity for the SEA Alliance to support participating businesses to better understand human rights risks in fisheries. 

We are currently developing our plans for the next two years. Provisional details are below.

SEA Alliance position statements

As a collective voice the SEA Alliance will in specific instances support and engage with advocacy initiatives. The SEA Alliance will also make statements and respond when there are concerns about ethical issues in the supply chain.

These advocacy initiatives will always be supported by the great majority of SEA Alliance participants but they do not necessarily represent the views of every participant organisation on every occasion.

These statements can be viewed below.

Contacts

For further information please contact:

Andy Hickman Head of the Seafood Ethics Action Alliance

Karen Green Seafood Ethics Action Alliance Secretariat

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