Professor Jason Weeks, Dr Francis Murray,
Professor David Little

SEAT Project
• EC funded project 2009 - 2013
• Focus on Asian aquaculture species exported to Europe
Asia
• Creating evidence base that support sustainability standards and policy
• Develop the EAFI as a tool for decision makers
Europe
Kasetsart University University of Stirling
Shanghai Ocean University Wageningen University
Can Tho University
Leiden University
Bangladesh Agricultural University
Bergen University
WorldFish
University of Copenhagen
Danish Institute of International Studies
CEFAS /
Food & Agricultural Organisation

Project Scope
• 4 species from 4 countries
• Particular focus on the main export species from each country
• Whole value chain approach, looking beyond the farm
Thailand
China
Vietnam
Bangladesh
Tilapia
√
√
Pangasius
√
Shrimp
√
√
√
√
Prawn
√

9
10
11
12
6
7
8
3
4
5
1
2
No.
Work Package Name
Project management
Scoping and systems overview
Life Cycle Analysis (LCA)
Environmental models
Social and economic dynamics
Food safety and public health
Contamination issues
Key values in a broader ethical framework
Enhancing food values through action research
Transparency & utility of trade information
Policy development and implementation
Dissemination
Feeding directly into the EAFI

E thical
A quaculture
F ood
I ndex

• SEAT’s 4 countries and 4 species present 48 different scenarios.
• SEAT project will present 4 specific case studies in detail
• Pangasius
• Shrimp
• Shrimp
• Shrimp and Prawn
Vietnam
Thailand
China
Bangladesh

• Evidence based decision support tool primarily for international seafood buyers and certifiers
• Incorporates environmental, economic, social and ethical data
• Assesses and scores the sustainability of an aquaculture commodity, beyond the farm level
• Specific to the 4 SEAT countries

• SEAT work packages generated data and identified species and country specific indicators
• Indicators developed into a tiered , hierarchical , iterative framework
• Simple tool, becoming more complex only where necessary
• Utilises a weight of evidence approach to make decisions

Tier 0
– simple assessment of the national value chain landscape
EAFI ?
Decision point at each tier
Tier One – qualitative assessment of landscape by questions
EAFI ?
Tier Two
More questions leading to semi-quantitative decisions
EAFI ?
Tier 3
More questions leading to more quantitative decisions
EAFI ?

• Step through from Tier 0
• Decision point at each tier. You can exit at any tier if available information is specific and you can satisfy the indicator/ answer the question
• If moving to more quantitative and specific tiers then EAFI facilitates improvements in knowledge and techniques

Community?
Disease?
Ethics?
Feed in?
Welfare?
Product quality?
Chemicals out?
Chemicals in?
Nutrients in?
Nutrients out?
Processing?

• All questions within the framework have a graduated range of answers or indicator of sustainability.
• Significant use of the actual project data collected and used via an interrogational approach
• Links to all models ERA Aqua, nutrient, GIS, LCA etc. within the framework; toolbox approach
• Development of bias and weighting towards ethics and sustainability
• Mixture of detailed and yes/ no questions dependent on tier – different questions with greater complexity of answers at higher tiers.

• Currently under development (expect finished product - November 2013)
• Biased towards ethical/ sustainable values of producers and European consumers
• Undergoing Delphi process as we speak – three iterations of testing with end users

tracey sharon
0
• Normalisation
• Aggregation
• Monte Carlo simulation
10
20
0
• Bootstrapping
• Weighting
40
30
50
60
70 sharon
50 100 150 level 0 level 1 level 2 level 3 level 4 level 5 tracey level 0 level 1 level 2 level 3 level 4 level 5

Fossil resource depletion
Tier EAFI-LCA description Type of analysis
No
Qualitative criteria
Global warming
2,00
0
1
Landscape of value chain
Strict and clear criteria per species, per country and per farm-type, like “no feed from …”; “no on-site (diesel based) electricity production”; etc.
1,00
0,00 b: Mean - SD
Farm A eutrophication acidification
2
3
Screening: Farm or farming from existing SEAT LCA work for 4 indicators: global warming, acidification, eutrophication and fossil resource depletion (maybe to combine with screening LCA excel results for feed inputs to farms )
Detailed: New LCA for a new farm – not in current SEAT
LCA database – or for an “improved” farm from the existing LCA database for 4 indicators: global warming, acidification, eutrophication and fossil resource depletion
Quantitative
LCA
Quantitative
LCA
Global warming acidification eutrophicatio n
Fossil fuel depletion
b:
Mean -
SD
0.19
Farm A Farm
B
1.5 0.1
0.80
0.72
0.41
2
0.5
0.67
1
1.5
0.33
Farm C
1
Farm D
2
Farm E
4
Farm F
3.5
Farm G
0.5
Farm H
0.2
Farm I
5
Sd Mea n
1.79 1.98
0.4
1
1.25
5
3
0.5
7
4
1.5
3
2
0.4
0.5
1
1.4
6
1.5
0.6
7
1.8
1.3
2.75
1.09
0.47
3.54
1.81
0.88

• A range of aquaculture standards setters/ certifiers have been consulted and been positive about the EAFI potential and the (risk) framework approach
• Buyers also tested; main comment is to keep it as simple as possible
• All have liked very much the inclusion of ethics and the whole value chain approach into the EAFI process

• Independent iterative process that is evidence based and focussed on ethics and sustainability
• Easy to use by non experts
• Not an accreditation scheme but a first consideration
Next steps.....
• Now encouraging feedback on how you would use the EAFI
• Development of EAFI is moving toward worked case studies, weighting, and refined presentation of robust database.

• Jason Weeks (EAFI development)
J.weeks@cranfield.co.uk