About this document

The Coller FAIRR Seafood Index provides robust, company-specific insights that enable investors, companies and broader stakeholders to better understand the material risks and opportunities facing the fast-evolving seafood and aquaculture industries. It has been designed to drive change within these industries by identifying leading practices and corporate leadership as well as areas for improvement, with the aim of strengthening the resilience of global food systems and mitigating the risks associated with intensive carnivorous aquaculture.

The Seafood Index includes indicators such as risk assessments, policies, targets and implementation strategies which reflect the maturity of a company’s response to environmental and social risks, rather than how sustainable the company’s operations are. This document explains how the index has been developed, including the rationale for universe selection, development of questions and indicators, and how company scores are calculated.

Research process

The research process involves a structured framework designed to assess how prepared a company is to manage financially material risks. Analysts conduct research across specific types of questions, known as Maturity Indicators, to generate a holistic analytical view that covers strategy, activity and outcomes. The process ensures that companies are evaluated on their understanding of the associated risks and their preparedness to manage them effectively.

Company universe selection

Companies in the index have been selected based on the size of their seafood and aquaculture operations in terms of float-adjusted market capitalisation and revenues, and their publicly listed status. The geographic distribution is balanced, with forty per cent of companies headquartered in the Asia Pacific region, another forty per cent in Europe and twenty per cent in North and Latin America. The index includes twenty companies, such as Bakkafrost P/F, Mowi ASA, Thai Union Group PCL, and Sysco Corporation, covering diverse activities from capture fisheries to post-harvest processing.

Topics captured

FAIRR has developed a proprietary framework of 16 topics that captures the financially material risks and opportunities relevant for seafood producers. Across these topics, companies are expected to adopt behaviours that demonstrate a mature understanding of associated risks, including undertaking risk assessments and scenario analyses, setting policies and targets, and implementing risk management systems. Failure to manage these topics can expose companies to strategic, regulatory, operational efficiency, human capital and reputational risks.

The topics covered include Animal Welfare, Antibiotic Stewardship, Deforestation and Conversion, Ecosystem Impacts, Food Safety, Governance, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Marine Raw Material Sustainability, Modern Slavery and Child Labour, Pollution, Protein Diversification, Seafood Traceability, Unfed Aquaculture, Water Scarcity, Worker Representation and Workforce Wellbeing. For instance, Animal Welfare reflects advances in scientific understanding of aquatic animal sentience, while Antibiotic Stewardship addresses public health risks due to antimicrobial resistance. Marine Raw Material Sustainability is vital as feed is a resource-intensive input, often accounting for most of the environmental footprint of farmed seafood.

Scoring process

The scoring process generates scores from 0-100 across the topics to illustrate company preparedness. Scores are generated from the bottom up through a three-step process. First, question-level scores are generated, typically with a maximum of 5 points. These points are then normalised to form a 0-100 score for each Maturity Indicator. Second, Topic scores are generated based on the average of the underlying Maturity Indicators. Finally, a Net Maturity Score is generated as the average of the underlying topic-level scores.

Assessing topic maturity

To assess maturity, FAIRR analysts research specific indicators: Risk Assessments, Opportunity Assessments, Policies, Targets, Implementation and Outcome Metrics. Risk Assessments focus on whether a company has undertaken scenario analyses to understand potential impacts. Opportunity Assessments evaluate if the company has identified financially material opportunities. Policies and Targets examine the strategies and specific goals set by the company, while Implementation and Outcome Metrics focus on the actions taken to execute strategies and the disclosure of key performance indicators.

Question structure

Each question at the indicator level has several response options. Some options are ‘Core’ and directly contribute to the scoring of a company. Other options are ‘Additional’ and are used only to collect data, making no contribution to the maturity scores in that topic. For example, a company may receive points for disclosing a time-bound net-zero target that is science-based or SBTi-validated, while additional data on specific components like Forest, Land and Agriculture may be collected without affecting the score.

Question applicability

FAIRR captures how and where companies operate within seafood value chains to determine the applicability of questions. Each question is tagged against five company categories: 1. Capture fisheries, 2. Salmonid aquaculture, 3. Shrimp aquaculture, 4. Feed manufacturing and 5. Post-harvest. This ensures that only relevant questions are presented for each company, supporting a more accurate assessment by targeting direct operations or supply chain activities as needed.

Benchmark scoring principles and logic

The scores in the benchmark illustrate the maturity of the company under analysis by reflecting their understanding of risks and their preparedness to manage them. Some scores also illustrate the extent to which a company is capitalising on opportunities to diversify and position themselves as sector innovators. Scored questions are first aggregated at the Maturity Indicator level, then at the Topic level, and finally to a Net Maturity level.

Production process

The production of the index follows a four-step process. Step one involves information collection through desk research and third-party examine. Step two provides companies with a three-week feedback period to review initial analyses and provide supporting documentation for adjustments. Step three involves final reviews and quality control by analyst teams to generate final scores. Step four is the publication of the benchmark content. A first update of the Coller FAIRR Seafood Index is expected in 2027-2028.

Information collection

The index does not use any confidential information. Analysts gather data from corporate reporting, such as sustainability reports, annual reports and codes of conduct, as well as third-party sources like NGOs and media providers. While FAIRR uses Artificial Intelligence tools for research, this information is systematically reviewed by analysts and must be traceable to a public source. Information provided by third parties like CDP is also examined to ensure it is treated in line with methodological principles.

Acknowledgements

The Coller FAIRR Seafood Index has been funded by the Jeremy Coller Foundation and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. FAIRR acknowledges the expertise and support provided by various organisations, including the Aquatic Life Institute, Klaas de Vos of Ocean Fox Advisory, Merivia Inc., the RSPCA, the Shrimp Welfare Project and 73bit Limited.