SeaChange® — a 10-year effort to save the world through reshaping sustainable practices in the seafood industry

At Sirindhorn International Environment Park, the Thai Union Group led the company’s high-level delegations, employees, local students, and the media to celebrate together the 10th anniversary of its initiative called ‘SeaChange’ to raise awareness about sustainable seafood industry practices, lives along the coast, and sustainable co-existence between human, businesses, and marine biodiversity.

- 

‘SeaChange’ set out to help shape stronger standards for responsible seafood, the first four key programmes in 2016 were responsible sourcing, marine conservation, safe and legal labour, and caring for our communities.

While this initiative was focused on the seafood industry, it evolved into ‘‘SeaChange® 2030’’ — multisectoral engagement that incorporated company-wide strategies, connecting people, planet protections, and performance through work on responsible aquaculture, climate action, ecosystem restoration, ocean plastics, social impact, and sustainability-linked financing.

Adam Brennan, Chief Sustainability and Communications Officer, explained that this initiative involved two primary themes — people and planet — which could be divided into five core topics: safeguarding workers; health, wellness, and nutrition; climate change, biodiversity, and circularity, and these topics have 11 detailed commitments that drive the strategy’s daily implementation.

Looking towards 2030, he explained that this initiative would focus on two primary areas: biodiversity and climate change, in which the Thai Union Group had already achieved 99% responsible sourcing for tuna, and the group is now expanding these efforts to all other species in its portfolio under the biodiversity category.

At the same time, as described as a ‘‘code red for humanity’’, the company is working to address climate change through decarbonising the company’s value chain.

‘‘Our 2030 strategy is very ambitious. We knew it was ambitious when we signed it off in 2023. So, there are stretched targets within this initiative. Will we reach 100% on every single target? Maybe not, but we are going to try our absolute hardest to get across all of the 11 commitments,’’ he said.