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Hyatt Hotels Corporation has announced a long-term seafood sustainability strategy in partnership with WWF - to increase its procurement of responsibly sourced seafood and eliminate the procurement of highly vulnerable seafood species. For the first phase of the partnership, Hyatt has set an initial goal of responsibly sourcing more than 50 percent of its inventory by 2018.

Mislabeled seafood products have become a widespread problem: Recent studies have found that 30 percent of seafood products are mislabelled and that such errors have led to significant distrust in labels among consumers. Meanwhile, DNA test results have reinforced that the Marine Stewardship Council's (MSC's) ecolabel provides credible traceability.

"We recognize that the well-being of people and the sustainability of our oceans are interdependent," said Buster Houston, director of seafood at Albertsons Cos., in a prepared statement. "As one of the largest U.S. retailers of seafood, we are committed to protecting the world's oceans so they can remain a bountiful natural resource that contributes to global food security, the livelihoods of hard-working fishermen and the global economy."

Albertsons has committed to preventing and reducing marine pollution, working to cut down on ocean acidification, taking better control of overfishing practices and other initiatives under the United Nations' sustainable "Oceans Goal." The retailer has also become part of the Seafood Task Force, which targets unregulated and illegal fishing

As a new Greenpeace report details, seafood supply chains are still far from transparent, despite increasing adoption of well-known sustainability certifications like the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC).

Food Lion has implemented a sustainable seafood policy that covers approximately 1,000 fresh, frozen, canned or packaged products sold across the store.

The organizing committee for the Rio 2016 Olympics and Paralympics signed an agreement serve only sustainably produced seafood. Seafood offerings will be certified by the Marine Stewardship Council or the Aquaculture Stewardship Council.

Norpac Fisheries Export is one of several companies that has found it profitable -- as well as environmentally helpful -- to track seafood catches along their entire supply chain and make sure they were not caught using illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) practices. Norpac's tracking system "actually saves us time and money," Managing Director Thomas Kraft said.

Whole Foods is the No. 1 grocer in terms of seafood sustainability this year, according to Greenpeace's 2015 Carting Away the Oceans report. The list honors stores that harvest or raise their fish offerings with minimal environmental harm. Rounding out the top five were Wegmans, Hy-Vee, Safeway and Target. 

Working with WWF will help Hilton Hotels and Resorts to improve seafood choices, food waste, and other issues at thousands of sites worldwide.

GlobeScan is pleased to have recently completed a second comprehensive study of seafood consumers globally for The Marine Stewardship Council. We surveyed more than 25,000 consumers in 22 countries and found that a large majority of consumers are increasingly demanding independent verification of sustainability claims in supermarkets (72% this year compared to 68% in our first study in 2016).

Just a day after a group of cross-party MPs called on the UK government to ban microbeads, Greenpeace released a report outlining the science on the impact of microplastics, including microbeads, on oceans and seafood. The non-profit is also urging the UK government to ban microbeads, "both due to the damage they cause to marine life and as a precautionary measure against the risk of human consumption."

Leaders of eight major seafood companies and fish feed organizations signed a pledge for ocean sustainability after a kickoff meeting of the Seafood Business for Ocean Stewardship last month in the Maldives. Signatories agreed to improve transparency in their own operations, build on and share best practices, engage in science-based efforts to improve fisheries management and productivity, work toward pollution reduction goals, and support the development of new sustainability technology and initiatives.

These small-scale fishermen in southern Japan are up against an industrial fishing juggernaut that is rapidly depleting stocks of Pacific bluefin tuna. A prime culprit behind the crisis, the Iki fishermen said, is a high-tech Japanese fishing armada that mines the waters northeast of Iki where Pacific bluefin tuna congregate to spawn. For the past 11 years, convoys of boats have waited in the Sea of Japan for these fish to gather, then used sonar tracking devices and huge purse seine nets to scoop them up by the thousands and sell them to global seafood giants such as Nippon Suisan Kaisha and Maruha Nichiro Corporation.

All seafood served at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro will be certified as sustainably wild caught and responsibly farmed, according to an agreement signed yesterday.

Waitrose has joined Tesco as the latest UK retailer to take seafood giant John West to task over its fishing practices, threatening to remove its canned tuna from store shelves if it does not follow through on its promise to improve. The decision will pile pressure on the embattled tuna company following last week's announcement by Tesco that John West would be banned if it continued using harmful fishing practices.

High Liner Foods announced that it has achieved 99 percent of its goal to source all its seafood from "certified sustainable or responsible" fisheries and aquaculture. The company made a pledge in November 2010 to reach this goal by the end of 2013.

One of the world's largest hotel and resort chains is partnering with the massive NGO to dig into water conservation, supply chain and other issues.

Truly committed companies have shortened their supply chains and focused on domestic sourcing. Bon Appétit is a great example. Their Fish to Fork program goes beyond a purchase commitment on paper to getting in the trenches to source fish that meets their corporate values. That means buying fish that is low on the trophic scale, meets their definition of "local" (both in the number of miles out to sea and across land that fish travels) and favors small boat operators.

Forget the romantic image of a lonely fisherman chasing his catch on the open water. Fishing supply chains have become sprawling, technology-driven operations rife with overfishing and human rights abuses.