Major British retailers sell many fish products under misleading “eco-friendly” labels, a study by an influential NGO shows.
ClientEarth, an organisation of lawyers specialising in environmental law based in London, Brussels and Warsaw, had been looking at products such as tinned tuna, haddock and cod, as well as farmed fish.
Their report Environmental claims on supermarket seafood showed that claims such as ‘sustainably sourced’; ‘protects the marine environment’; and ‘responsibly farmed’ were misleading or unverified on 32 products out of 100 examined. 22 of those claims were directly misleading, while in a further 10 cases there was no evidence presented to prove otherwise.
For example, there were “dolphin friendly” labels featured on tinned tuna that was caught in areas where there was often no threat to dolphins, failing to mention the harmful effects the tuna fishing method used had on other threatened species such as turtles and sharks.
“It would be shocking to find out that the free-range chicken you bought was actually battery farmed. Discovering the fish you’re eating, which is labelled as responsible or environmentally friendly, actually led to the deaths of threatened species also leaves a bad taste in the mouth”, commented ClientEarth CEO James Thornton.
“Consumers need to be able to trust labels but in reality claims such as ‘sustainably sourced’ or ‘responsibly farmed’ are often misleading. The purchasing power of consumers is critical to stopping overfishing. In the EU alone 88 percent of stocks are overfished and retailers know that widespread concern about this leads people to buy one product over another”.
In the report, ClientEarth recommends that labelling standards should be harmonised at EU level in order to overcome the problem.