All restaurants participating in the Virginia Aquarium Sensible Seafood™ program must serve or sell at least one seafood item form the program's "Best Choice" list and refrain from serving any items from the program's "Avoid" list. The Sensible Seafood program works primarily with the Seafood Watch program as their research partner. The program also has an advisory panel with experts from the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, Virginia Sea Grant, Old Dominion University, and the Virginia Marine Products Board.

Good Catch is a restaurant-oriented program where the Aquarium staff works with their chefs to improve the sustainability of their seafood offerings over time.

The Gulf of Maine Responsibly Harvested branding program enables market differentiation of Gulf of Maine seafood products that meet important criteria around traceability and responsible harvest.

Aquaculture Certification  |  Steps to Certification  |  Chain of Custody Certification  |  Certification Bodies

The ASC standard for responsible fish farming covers seven principles:

Final Score for Wild Fisheries = geometric mean of the four scores (Criterion 1-4).
Final Score for Aquaculture = geometric mean of the eight scores (Criterion 1-8).

NOAA Fisheries measures the sustainability of the Nation’s fisheries through the Fish Stock Sustainability Index (FSSI). The FSSI tracks the status of rebuilding and maintaining 230 commercially and recreationally important stocks and complexes. The index incorporates critical components of managing fisheries - controlling harvest rates, maintaining population size, and increasing knowledge about the status of fish stocks and complexes.

Food Alliance shellfish certification criteria apply to all North American shellfish production systems that produce shellfish from seed to harvest within a defined area and with clear ownership of the shellfish being cultured. It applies to shellfish farms that produce the following:

• Oysters
• Clams
• Mussels
• Geoducks

*The standard does not cover wild harvest. 

• Shall coordinate and collaborate with national, regional and local governments in the development and implementation of policies, regulations and procedures necessary and practicable to achieve environmental, economic and social sustainability of aquaculture operations.