Evolving Perspectives of Stewardship in the Seafood Industry

Humanity has never benefited more from the ocean as a source of food, livelihoods, and well-being, yet on a global scale this has been accompanied by trajectories of degradation and persistent inequity. Awareness of this has spurred policymakers to develop an expanding network of ocean governance instruments, catalyzed civil society pressure on the public and private sector, and motivated engagement by the general public as consumers and constituents. Among local communities, diverse examples of stewardship have rested on the foundation of care, knowledge and agency. But does an analog for stewardship exist in the context of globally active multinational corporations? Here, we consider the seafood industry and its efforts to navigate this new reality through private governance. We examine paradigmatic events in the history of the sustainable seafood movement, from seafood boycotts in the 1970s through to the emergence of certification measures, benchmarks, and diverse voluntary environmental programs. We note four dimensions of stewardship in which efforts by actors within the seafood industry have aligned with theoretical concepts of stewardship, which we describe as (1) moving beyond compliance, (2) taking a systems perspective, (3) living with uncertainty, and (4) understanding humans as embedded elements of the biosphere. In conclusion, we identify emerging stewardship challenges for the seafood industry and suggest the urgent need to embrace a broader notion of ocean stewardship that extends beyond seafood.

Join In . . . and Drop Out? Firm Adoption of and Disengagement From Voluntary Environmental Programs

Voluntary environmental programs (VEPs) offer opportunities for companies and stakeholders to improve environmental outcomes valued by society in the absence of regulatory mandates. Research has addressed numerous antecedents for firm adoption of VEPs, enhancing knowledge of how stakeholders and firms engage on substantive issues of public importance. However, program adoption is dynamic, and stagnant participation rates may threaten program longevity when firms do not realize expected benefits. Prior literature has not sufficiently addressed the factors that compel firms to drop out. In this study I articulate three consequential drivers of firm commitment to VEPs—transparency, effort, and achievement—and empirically estimate their effects on firm disengagement from one such prominent program: CDP (formerly known as Carbon Disclosure Project). Findings indicate that firm transparency and effort represent powerful commitment mechanisms driving continued program participation. This study contributes to theory over multiple literatures related to VEP participation and offers practical guidance for both VEPs and firms.

Why Do Firms Participate in Voluntary Environmental Programs? A Meta-Analysis of the Role of Institutions, Resources, and Program Stringency

We meta-analyze research on why firms join voluntary environmental programs (VEPs) to assess the impact of program stringency, or the extent to which they have rigorous, enforceable standards on these decisions. Stringency creates trade-offs for firms by affecting programs’ effectiveness, legitimacy, and adoption costs. Most research considers singular programs and lacks cross program variation needed to analyze program stringency’s impact. Our meta-analysis addresses this by sampling 127 studies and 23 VEPs. We begin by identifying common institutional and resource-based drivers of participation in the literature, and then analyze how program stringency moderates their impacts. Our results suggest that strictly governed VEPs encourage participation among highly visible and profitable firms, and discourage it when informal institutional pressures are higher, and firms have prior experience with other VEPs or quality management standards. We demonstrate that VEP stringency has nuanced effects on firm participation based on the institutional and resource-based factors facing them.