In 2008, FishChoice launched with an idea for a website to help companies find sustainable seafood. Since then, we have grown into a technology-first organization that believes online platforms can transform the seafood industry by giving thousands of businesses the information they need to take action on sustainability. You can learn more about those initiatives and other projects we are working on below.
Launched in 2016, FisheryProgress is a one-stop shop for information on the progress of global fishery improvement projects (FIPs). FisheryProgress makes tracking progress more efficient, consistent, and reliable for businesses that support FIPs.
FisheryProgress grew out of work by the Conservation Alliance for Seafood Solutions to revise its Guidelines for Supporting Fishery Improvement Projects in 2015. The platform is developed and managed by FishChoice. Before FisheryProgress, one of the biggest challenges was that there was no way to know if FIPs meet the guidelines and, more importantly, if they were making progress. Determined to find a solution for this problem, the Alliance revised guidelines to include the creation of an online tool – FisheryProgress – to make FIP progress information easier to access, track, and compare.
After reports of human rights violations in one of the fishery improvement projects reporting on FisheryProgress, the platform introduced its first version of the novel Human Rights and Social Responsibility (HRSR) Policy. The Policy provides a framework for FIPs on FisheryProgress to integrate social responsibility into their FIP. Specifically, it guides FIPs through key steps, such as making a formal commitment to social responsibility, understanding the scope of vessels and fishers within the FIP, identifying whether the FIP operates in a high-risk context for forced labor and human trafficking, and conducting more robust assessments for understanding and addressing other potential risks. Version 2.0 of the Policy was launched in June 2025.
While human rights and social responsibility work and certification remains nascent in the seafood industry, FIPs are increasingly serving as testing grounds for integrating social responsibility into seafood sustainability. FisheryProgress is not a certification system, nor is it designed to offer definitive assessments of working conditions. But it has become one of the most structured and transparent sources of social data in the seafood sector, in effect pushing FishChoice to the forefront of human rights work in this regard. As we continue this work, our hope is that the larger industry will learn from this approach and adopt measures to ensure human rights and due diligence work are prioritized as much as environmental sustainability.