How can policy-makers help?

As a policy maker - at local, regional or national level - you probably have a crucial role to play in helping London become a Sustainable Fish City. Fixing the fish problem can't happen by voluntary consumer or commercial action alone. Help create the regulatory and market conditions to make Sustainable Fish City easy to achieve. Here are some ideas.

London's boroughs and local authorities

	Borough taking at least two significant steps to support sustainable fish
	Borough taking one significant step to support sustainable fish
	Borough taking none of the significant action below on sustainable fish*

* Let us know if you think things have improved in your Borough. We will update the map as more action happens

In November 2011, the London Food Link - working with Sustainable Fish City and others -  undertook an audit of London Borough progress on key healthy and sustainable food issues. Borough support for sustainable fish was measured, resulting in the map shown above. To take action on sustainable fish, please consider:

• Running the Marine Stewardship Council Fish and Kids project with primary schools in the borough, which is free of charge
• Improving school meals with the Big Lottery funded Food for Life programme, which at Silver award level means excluding endangered fish (this requirement moves to Bronze award level from the beginning of 2012).
• Achieving Marine Stewardship Chain of Custody certification for food bought by the Borough and at least some of your publicly funded institutions
• Letting us know about the actions you are taking so that we can help you celebrate this, and to update the London Borough map for the future, email: fish@sustainweb.org

If you would like to consider adopting a policy, or need help with catering contract terms, please get in touch: fish@sustainweb.org

National institutions based in London

Government spends about £46 million every year on seafood. We are delighted to say that in June 2011, Central Government "put its own house in order" on sustainable fish by adopting the Sustainable Fish City standards into its catering specifications for fish served in Whitehall, Number 10, Government Departments (many of which are based in London), UK prisons and some parts of the armed forces. This accounts for about one third of all food served in the public sector in the UK, to 400,000 people a year. [read more...]

Now we need to make sure that all fish served in the public sector is covered by sustainability standards. Approximately another third of public spend on food is in schools, and the remaining third is made up of food served in hospitals, local authorities, state-run care homes and other public institutions. If you work on government, school or hospital policy, then we think you should:

• Make sustainable seafood mandatory for other public institutions that spend taxpayers' money on fish, such as schools, hospitals, care homes and local authorities, which at present have no mandatory sustainability rules at all.

UK Government and policy-makers

Sustainable Fish City is a member of OCEAN2012, a coalition dedicated to ensuring that the 2012 reform of the Common Fisheries Policy stops overfishing, ends destructive fishing practices and delivers fair and equitable use of healthy fish stocks. By its membership of this coalition, Sustainable Fish City hopes to demonstrate to European policy-makers that there are many thousands of consumers, businesses and policy-makers in the UK that support the vision of a sustainable approach to precious marine life. If you are in a position to influence EU fisheries policy, please make special efforts in 2012 to implement the best possible policies to secure a sustainable fish future. See the OCEAN2012 website for more information.

Get in touch, and we'll discuss how campaign member organisations can help you to help London become a Sustainable Fish City.

Jim Paice MP has written to Sustainable Fish City stating the UK Government’s support for the initiative, also saying that fish buying rules adopted by government in June 2011 (which adopted the same standards as Sustainable Fish City and the London 2012 Games) are intended to “send a clear message to the wider public sector to take the same action”.
Jim Paice MP, UK Minister for Food and Agriculture

We're working on it - So can you!

“Coming to London from Brussels I was informed that London has been challenged to become the first ever Sustainable Fish City. What a challenge. There is a clear message here and I have received it. We need a new European Fisheries Policy and we can have it!”
Maria Damanaki, EU Commissioner for Fisheries

We're working on it - So can you!