February 3, 2022 — High inflation and low-cost credit are providing an “appealing window” for seafood firms to integrate a traceability system into their operations, according to a new Planet Tracker report.
The nonprofit’s new research paper, “Implementing Traceability: Seeing Through Excuses,” said companies “who have to borrow to fund a traceability system will know that corporate debt rates remain low.”
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December 8, 2021 — The nonprofit Planet Tracker has publicly named several large seafood companies it alleges are involved with illegal, unreported, or unregulated (IUU) fishing.
The report, “Do You IUU?” lists Seoul, South Korea-based Dongwon Industries Co., and Shenzen, China-headquartered Rongcheng Xinlong Aquatic Products Co. and CNFC Overseas Fisheries Company as having ties to IUU fishing, with vessels listed on the Combined IUU Fishing Vessel List – a consolidation of global IUU vessel lists established by the world’s regional fisheries management organizations (RFMOs).
August 25, 2021 — If one percent of global fisheries subsidies were redirected to onboard monitoring, the proportion of wild-catch fishing monitored by observers could create a meaningful impact in reducing illegal fishing and bycatch, according to Planet Tracker Financial Analyst Francois Mosnier.
Mosnier, a financial analyst covering seafood companies at the financial think tank, said he believes an additional USD 222 million (EUR 190.2 million) is needed to expand observer coverage to 20 percent across all regional fishery management organizations, which cover the cost of observers through a levy on fisheries. Currently, observers cover just 2 percent of all catches recorded by RFMOs.
April 14, 2021 — The nonprofit financial think tank Planet Tracker has released a study asserting that Japanese companies highly exposed to seafood are beginning to suffer constraints from the country’s overfished resources and that their valuations over the last decade have declined as a result.
Titled “Against the Tide – The Japanese Seafood Industry Confronts Nature’s Limits,” the report is mainly aimed at institutional investors, with the hope that they will recognize that businesses built on a declining resource will eventually face difficulties and that they will use their influence as shareholders to push the companies toward better environmental practices.
December 17, 2019 — Global salmon growth forecasts to 2025 could be overestimated by 6 to 8 percent, according to a new briefing paper from financial think tank Planet Tracker. The culprit is global warming, the paper argues.
In “Salmon Feels the Heat,” researchers analysed reported fish losses attributed to recurring environmental shocks over the past nine years, as reported by the 10 largest publicly listed salmon producers in Norway, Chile, and the United Kingdom. They found that the aggregated production and earnings losses relative to forecast production reached 5 percent for the period between 2010 to 2019.
October 21, 2019 — A new report from the nonprofit Planet Tracker is urging banks and investors to price the hidden risk of unsustainable operations by Japanese seafood companies into their lending decisions.
Planet Tracker is a project of Investor Watch, a nonprofit company with the goal of encouraging “impact investing,” or aligning capital markets with social and ecological sustainability. Mark Campanale, a co-founder of Investor Watch, formerly worked for asset management companies and was involved in the creation of several responsible investment funds. He also provided input to the current report.