A new report by Planet Tracker has highlighted a lack of transparency in the supply chains of some of the world’s largest tuna harvesting companies. The report highlighted several companies – including Albacora, Maruha Nichiro, Dongwon, Bolton Group and Sajo – finding that an estimated 56% of the 30 largest tuna companies’ catch is untraceable. Many ships “spend more time fishing with their tracking systems turned off than on,” according to the report.
Murky waters in the tuna supply chain
Planet Tracker, which used Global Fishing Watch data to create a database of 736,000 “likely tuna” fishing events for the year 2022, to analyse 2,153 vessels catching tuna, claims to have revealed “for the first time the actual catch” of the world’s 30 largest tuna harvesters despite their highly opaque disclosures.
The study, Tuna Turner: Investors Must Turn Up Transparency in the Tuna Industry, interrogates the Global Fishing Watch data to reconstruct catch volumes by species and region for all 2,153 industrial vessels fishing tuna globally. The research attributes these details for the first time to companies and the countries they are headquartered, aiming to fill in the gaps in company disclosure.
The report focuses on the 30 largest harvesters of tuna globally – the ‘Tuna 30*’ – accounting for 46% of global tuna catch. Only four out of 30 firms report any tuna catch volumes, with even lower transparency on species caught, location, catch methods and certification levels: just one of the 30 companies – Bolton Group – discloses this data.
Willful opacity in fishing fleets
Without knowing what, where, how much and how companies fish, investors cannot know which of them are most exposed to sustainability risks. Whilst most tuna stocks are not overfished, tuna biomass has declined by 40% to 80%. And, major ecological damage persists in numerous tuna fisheries.
The Tuna 30 overall extract 12% of their catch from stocks that are not at healthy levels of abundance or that are experiencing or might experience overfishing. Planet Tracker estimates that over 40% of the harvest from SAPMER, China National Agricultural Development Group and Maruha Nichiro comes from such stocks.
Several tuna species currently face extinction. The research finds that Albacora, Maruha Nichiro, Dongwon, Bolton Group and Sajo are likely harvesters of these threatened species.
Planet Tracker also found that over half (56%) of the big 30’s catch is “dark”. This means it could not be tied to a specific fishing company or vessel due to missing ownership information or satellite data. Worse, companies may be spending more time fishing with their Automatic Identification System (AIS) switched off than on.
A better way
It’s likely that the majority of harvesters undertake opaque (or disingenuous) fishing practices with a desire to secure revenues and protect profits. However, Planet Tracker’s report also suggests that better data on ownership information and eliminating AIS gaps could improve profits and valuations in the industry by an average of 0.6% and 1% respectively within five years.
Francois Mosnier, Head of Nature at Planet Tracker, said: “Better transparency, in the form of corporate disclosure on catch and AIS usage, is crucial to help investors understand the exact risks their portfolios are exposed to. We cannot distinguish good behaviour from bad behaviour without first knowing what is actually being caught, where and how on a company-by-company basis.”
- Sourcing & Procurement
- Sustainability