PULLMAN, Wash. — New research by a Washington State University economist examines how changing environmental conditions may influence the practice and trustworthiness of sustainable ecolabeling in the fishing industry.
Ana Espinola-Arredondo, professor in the School of Economic Sciences, worked with colleagues at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, Spain, to model ecolabel certification in fisheries.
Sharing their findings in the July issue of the Journal of Environmental Management, scientists found that factors such as rising temperatures and more intense storms, which impact fishing stocks, along with higher prices for their catch, encourage commercial fishers to embrace ecolabeling.
“Changing conditions affect the value and effectiveness of certification,” Espinola-Arrendondo said. Fisheries that operate sustainably are more likely to retain certification when environmental conditions deteriorate.
Ecolabels have been around for decades. These marks, found on everything from home appliances to canned tuna, inform consumers that their goods originate from environmentally responsible and sustainable sources.
The fishing industry began to adopt and certify sustainable practices in the 1990s, recognizing the need to protect fisheries. The expense of certification can be prohibitive, especially for small-scale fisheries.
“When environmental shocks reduce profitability, certification may attract only the most efficient fishers,” Espinola-Arrendondo said. In contrast, fisheries that expand into new grounds due to favorable climate change may be tempted to fake certification.
“Highly efficient fishermen are generally better positioned to meet certification requirements,” she stated. “Their advantage may stem from lower abatement costs, access to cleaner technologies, or greater experience, all of which reduce the cost of complying with certification standards.”
Espinola-Arredondo’s team used an economic methodology called signaling games to consider the incentives for fishers to pay for certification. A signaling game models how two “players” —in this case, fishers and certifying agencies— reveal their information level by taking actions that carry a cost. Combined a theoretical model with evidence from real-world fisheries, the team modeled how fishermen would choose to certify based on their catch’s price, environmental challenges, and the cost of certification.
Climate change is altering marine ecosystems. Marine heatwaves can rapidly disrupt productivity, affect fish stock abundance, and challenge the ability of fisheries to maintain sustainability standards. Some of the changes have expanded fisheries and opened new challenges for certification.
“Environmental conditions in the Barents Sea, for example, have become increasingly favorable for the fishing industry,” Espinola-Arredondo said. “Rising sea temperatures and the retreat of sea ice have expanded habitat for commercially important species like Atlantic cod.”
These favorable conditions suggest a need for more intensive monitoring of fisheries that claim to follow sustainable practices.
“We were surprised to find that subsidies designed to support fisheries affected by environmental shocks can inadvertently encourage the fraudulent use of ecolabels,” Espinola-Arredondo said. Subsidies might enable inefficient fishermen to obtain certification without fully adopting improved practices, the professor added.
“This result highlights the importance of carefully designing subsidy programs to avoid unintended consequences that could undermine consumer trust in ecolabel certification,” she said.
The study could help inform future policy on the gaps in certification as a reliable indicator of sustainability.
“This project is a great example of the international research partnerships growing between WSU’s School of Economic Sciences and leading European institutions,” said Raj Khosla, Cashup Davis Family Endowed Dean of the College of Agricultural, Human, and Natural Resource Sciences. “It highlights the global reach and impact of our scholarly collaborations.”
Read the paper, “Can ecolabels survive climate uncertainty? A game-theoretic perspective on fishery certification,” at Science Direct.