Tuna In For This!
Tuna is the world’s favorite fish. The high demand for tuna has led to overexploitation of tuna populations through industrialized fishing methods leading to the complete devastation of some marine environments. Sharks, turtles, whales, dolphins, and seabirds are all creatures that have suffered the fate of being bycatch when fishing for tuna on a large scale. Thankfully, a more sustainable fishing method – pole and line – has gained increasing popularity amongst conscious consumers and is pushing most major brands and big retailers to provide a pole and line option.
Not only is pole and line fishing helping marine life, it is also generating shared value. This form of fishing requires more fishermen to be involved in the process since each fish is caught individually, one-by-one. Most fishing boats consist of a crew of men and this requirement for more fishermen, in turn, creates a ton of jobs. In coastal nations and cities, the growth of this industry (Fishing) can occasionally be the only thing driving the economy. This article here discusses pole and line fishing and the massive impact it has had on the island nation of Maldives where over 70% of the population are fishermen.
Now, what can we do as consumers to protect our oceans and push for more sustainable fisheries? Look at Greenpeace’s tuna rankings! After I looked through the rankings, I was shocked to find Ocean’s tuna ranked 4th. I was pretty sure their new Ocean’s “Ocean Friendly Tuna” campaign claimed that “Greenpeace ranked Ocean’s as the most sustainable, readily available, national brand of canned tuna in all of Canada.”
After delving a bit deeper into the matter, I found that the Vancouver Sun had already reported on this false claim. The newspaper reported that Sarah King, a senior strategist at Ocean’s commented: “As the second-largest brand in Canada, and the third-top-ranked national brand, this claim is not factually inaccurate given their relative size and availability across the country, compared to the other top-ranked brands”. Raincoast, the company that was legitimately awarded first place in Greenpeace’s rankings scored significantly higher than the other top brands in terms of sustainability. This was also their second time being awarded the first spot in the ranking which just solidifies their credibility and undermines Ocean’s claim even further. After reading the article, I consider Raincoast much more deserving of the claim made by Ocean’s. These types of false claims just act against consumer confidence in the brand, undermine the brand’s authenticity and hurt other companies who are genuinely striving towards these important sustainable goals and new ideas.
References:
Greenpeace’s 2017 Canned Tuna Sustainability Ranking
Vancouver Sun’s Article on Ocean’s Misleading Sustainability Claim.
The ability to gage the accuracy of claims is a very valuable skill as a consumer today. Customers are generally weary of absolute claims like that, however few take the steps to dive deeper into discovering the truth. It is comforting that media outlets are paying attention to such claims and making an effort to inform the public about falsehoods. Over fishing is a topic that spans to every ocean on earth and thus affects many cultures and nations in similar ways. Anything from biodiversity loss to habitat collapse to economic failure threaten the livelihoods of millions of people. Keeping up to date on innovations in this industry is key to supporting companies making changes to operate responsibly. -Riley
Thanks Samar,
I agree the claims of other companies are often detrimental to the small guys actually making a difference. Do you think this is something that governments need to regulate more closely or does the onus still lie on individual consumers to find out the difference between the real commitments and the green washers?
My suggestions moving forward would be to include some questions to inspire conversation. All in all though you are doing a great job.
Keep up the good work,
Tess
Thank you too, Tess! I am enjoying the blogging aspect of this class more than I expected I would. I was nervous about it at first, but now I find myself searching for more topics to talk about. It’s difficult to say if the government should regulate all types of these labels because we’ve done readings in class that show the importance of privatized labels and the positive impact they’ve had over the years. However, we’ve also read how these labels are getting so diluted now and how so many of them mean absolutely nothing. Some labels remain very credible through all this though and if these labels worked together with brands that they have certified to solidify both the brands and the label’s commitment it could work as a good combined effort. It is difficult to trust some of these corporations though and my next blog post is probably going to be about that! Maybe the government could just regulate the labels on some more critical resources that are in a more dangerous state?
I completely agree with your statement “These types of false claims just act against consumer confidence in the brand, undermine the brand’s authenticity and hurt other companies…” In all honesty, I have always purchased Ocean’s brand tuna without ever really thinking about the sustainability aspect of it. Therefore, when we watched the Ocean’s ad in class I felt good about my decision to buy this brand and made the commitment to always buy OCean’s from then on. However, now reading your post regarding the fact that Ocean’s made false claims and that they aren’t actually #1 on the Greenpeace ranking has made me very doubtful and angry towards Ocean’s. I am the kind of person that believes in the good of people and thinks that nobody would ever lie to us on purpose so I trust advertising and feel as though I don’t need to do further research. I now realize how naive this approach is and will definitely be doing research into brands and advertisements that make claims about being #1 in anything from now on!