Fisheries Research 174 (2016) 129–135 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Fisheries Research j ourna l ho me page: www.elsevier.com/locate/fishres Technical note Really sustainable? Inherent risks of eco-labeling in fisheries Maria Hadjimichael a,b,* , Troels J. Hegland a a Innovative Fisheries Management, Aalborg University, Skibbrogade 5, DK-9000 Aalborg, Denmark b Department of Social and Political Sciences, University of Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Received 25 May 2015 Received in revised form 7 September 2015 Accepted 16 September 2015 Available online 29 September 2015 Keywords: Environmental certification Eco-labels Market liberalization Social justice a b s t r a c t In recent years, there has been a proliferation in environmental, market-based product certification schemes. Typically, certifying bodies provide labels that assure that the products have been extracted or produced using environmentally (and sometimes socially) responsible practices. Ideally, consumers can then make informed choices and select certified products over non-certified. We discuss the advantages as well as the limitations associated with such market-based certification systems drawing on three case studies of Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certification: the Alaska Pollock Fishery, the Faroe Islands’ Saithe Fishery, and the Australian Northern Prawn Fishery. Based on our cases, a key indication is that incentives generated by market forces create a risk of certification schemes making questionable claims in order to increase and retain market shares. Monopolization of the concept of sustainability is an impor- tant additional issue. Experience from the MSC demonstrates that standardization of what is considered sustainable creates a monopoly-like situation. This produces a difficult situation for those who are least able to respond to new market requirements as well as those who respond to calls for sustainability in different ways compared to those that have received the approval of a few, large certification schemes such as the MSC. © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction In 1995 Elizabeth Dowdeswell, the then Secretary-General of the United Nations Environment Program, stated that “the market is replacing our democratic institutions as the key determinant in our society” (Dowdeswell, 1995). Two decades later, her words ring true and—irrespective of the recent international economic crisis—the market seems more powerful than ever. The rise of a market economy has also had an impact on nat- ural resource management. In short, in fisheries, the advance of the free market incentivized and gave rise to capital intensive and efficient practices through a push for technological advancements and industrial mode fisheries (Jacquet, 2009). This resulted pre- dominantly in national strategies focusing almost exclusively on large-scale fisheries and a need for an increase in fishing effort and capacity (Carvalho et al., 2011). The end-result has in some countries been the establishment of de facto private ownership over future fishing opportunities and the establishment of mar- kets where individual transferable fishing quotas (so-called ITQs) * Corresponding author at: Department of Social and Political Sciences, University of Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus. E-mail address: maria.m.hadjimichael@gmail.com (M. Hadjimichael). can be traded to optimize efficiency (Grafton, 1996; Macinko and Bromley, 2004; Andersen et al., 2010). According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organi- zation (FAO, 2014), the proportion of assessed marine fish stocks fished within biologically sustainable limits declined from 90% in 1974 to 71.2% in 2011, and there are studies which suggest that these trends are even more pronounced (Froese et al., 2012). According to the same FAO report, almost one third of fish stocks are estimated to be overfished, 61.3% fully fished and 9.9% underfished. As international organizations and national governments have failed to deliver sound fisheries management, various schemes for sustainability labels have been put in place with the intention of giving buyers of fish products the choice to opt for a certified sus- tainable product (Roheim, 2003). Today, the most important of these is the label administered by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), which was founded in 1997 to provide fisheries operators with an economic incentive to improve their management and eco- logical sustainability (Ward and Phillips, 2009). Many private governance schemes—including transnational eco-labeling schemes—have emerged because of lacking or insuf- ficient international regulation, something which has allowed private actors to increase their impact on international gover- nance (Pattberg, 2005). Examples of issues covered by transnational certification labels include forestry (e.g. Forest Stewardship Coun- cil (FSC)); fisheries (e.g. MSC); coffee, tea, cocoa and cotton http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.fishres.2015.09.012 0165-7836/© 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.