Understanding social sustainability of capture fisheries
Fishing companies are faced with decreasing profitability and increasing competition. These companies can try to gain a competitive advantage by differentiating their products, e.g. by marketing new product attributes that consumers are interested in such as attributes relating to sustainability. Al...
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| Format: | Doctoral or Postdoctoral Thesis |
| Language: | English |
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Wageningen University
2017
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| Online Access: | https://research.wur.nl/en/publications/understanding-social-sustainability-of-capture-fisheries https://doi.org/10.18174/392826 |
| Summary: | Fishing companies are faced with decreasing profitability and increasing competition. These companies can try to gain a competitive advantage by differentiating their products, e.g. by marketing new product attributes that consumers are interested in such as attributes relating to sustainability. Although consumers could be considerably interested in social sustainability of fish, this sustainability dimension has received little research interest so far. The main objective of this thesis is to understand social sustainability of capture fisheries. Social sustainability can be understood by applying the framework for social sustainability assessment, which consists of stakeholder consultation and issue selection, indicator development and quantification, and interpretation of the results, to the case considered. The case considered in this thesis was capture fisheries in the northeast Atlantic. Stakeholder consultation resulted in the identification of 27 social sustainability issues relevant for capture fisheries in the northeast Atlantic. Overall, social sustainability issues concerning working conditions, employees' job fulfilment and fish welfare were seen as more important than other social sustainability issues. Indicators were defined for the most important social sustainability issues of capture fisheries in the northeast Atlantic. To interpret values for each indicator, rubrics were developed that articulated levels of performance. Application of these indicators and their accompanying rubrics to a Norwegian trawler demonstrated that the indicators and rubrics provide insight into social sustainability at the level of the vessel, which can be used to identify potential room for improvement. To determine whether social sustainability issues can be used for product differentiation, consumer interest in social sustainability issues of whitefish from the northeast Atlantic was studied. Results from a choice modelling survey demonstrated that consumers prefer the issue fish welfare over the issues product ... |
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