About us

Sustainable Fish Cities is an initiative conceived and supported by an alliance of not-for-profit organisations already working on sustainable seafood issues, coordinated by Sustain: The alliance for better food and farming. Some of these also run advisory or support services that can help businesses to develop sustainable seafood policies and practices.

We want to create the first ever Sustainable Fish Cities - to show what can be done if people and organisations make a concerted effort to change their buying habits:

• If you run an organisation that buys or serves food (most do, think about it!), then sign up to a Sustainable Fish Cities pledge. You will be sending the message to your suppliers that they need to buy only verifiably sustainable fish.
• If you are involved in food policy for your town or city, then fnd out more about the targets we aim to reach before we declare a Sustainable Fish City.

The links below will help you to find out more.

    Cities and organisations that are buying and serving sustainable fish

    Members of the Sustainable Fish Cities working group

    Sustainable Fish Cities associate organisations

    Sustainable Fish Cities funders

 

If you'd like to get involved or have any questions, contact Sustainable Fish Cities. Tel: 020 3559 6777; email: fish@sustainweb.org.

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Members of the Sustainable Fish Cities working group

	Marine Conservation Society: (MCS) the UK charity dedicated to the protection of the marine environment and its wildlife, which publishes authoritative sustainability ratings of fish and fisheries, see: http://www.fishonline.org/
	Marine Stewardship Council: (MSC) which runs a fishery certification programme and seafood ecolabel to help consumers pick the best environmental choice in seafood. Also provides MSC Chain of Custody certification so that fisheries and seafood businesses can get certified to the MSC standards to show that they support sustainable fishing.
	Pisces Responsible Fish Restaurants: a restaurant-led initiative that seeks out and links good fishermen with chefs, overcoming practical issues to help chefs to get better fish onto plates.
	Sustain: The alliance for better food and farming coordinates the Sustainable Fish City campaign. This includes convening the working group, recruiting new signatories and public support for the Sustainable Fish City pledge, referring organisations that sign up to expert support to make the necessary changes to use sustainable fish. Sustain's involvement also includes support from the following Sustain campaigns and projects: London Food Link, a network of individuals, organisations and businesses interested in healthy and sustainable food Children's Food Campaign, working for better standards for children's food, food labelling and food education Campaign for Better Hospital Food, advocating for healthy, sustainable and compassionate food standards for NHS patients, staff and visitors Campaign for a Better Food Britain, aiming for changes in policy and practices to enable everyone to be able to enjoy food that is good for our health, produced in a way that supports good livelihoods, reduced waste and greenhouse gas emissions, high animal welfare and restoration of nature.
	Sustainable Restaurant Association: a national not-for-profit membership association, providing restaurants with advice and support to help them navigate the whole spectrum of sustainability issues.

Note: To maintain its independence, the Sustainable Fish City campaign does not receive financial support from the food, farming or fishing industries.

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Other initiatives we have supported

Several of the Sustainable Fish City working party members and associate organisations were also active supporters of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's Fish Fight campaign. This encourages Government and European policy change to prevent the appalling waste of fish and damage to ocean environments caused by European discard policy. It also encourages consumers and companies to buy responsibly and to eat a wider range of fish, taking the pressure off over-fished species.

Sustainable Fish City was 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 hoped 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.

 

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Associate organisations

The following organisations have also been very helpful in the development and implementation of the Sustainable Fish City campaign, and are groups that can provide support, advice, or that we work with on sustainable fish activities or promotion.

	Billingsgate Seafood Training School: runs courses for young people and foodservice professionals to introduce them to preparing and cooking seafood.
	Environmental Justice Foundation: a charity working to empower communities in the global south to overcome environmental problems and find peaceful ways of preventing them.
	Fish4Ever: producers of tinned fish from sustainable sources.
	The Fishmongers’ Company: one of the 12 Great Livery Companies of the City of London, upholding standards in the trading of fish and shellfish.
	The Food for Life Catering Mark is a way for restaurants and caterers to gain recognition for good work serving food that is freshly prepared, free from undesirable additives, better for the environment, and better for animal welfare. Among other criteria, to receive a bronze award, caterers must exclude use of fish from the Marine Conservation Society 'fish to avoid' list; to receive a gold award, 30 per cent of food spend must be on Marine Stewardship Council certified fish or organic ingredients .
	Greenwich Cooperative Development Agency (GCDA) is a successful social enterprise working on a wide range of projects for community and enterprise development, food co-ops, and a Good Food Training programme for people in the catering profession (as part of the SE Ten social enterprise), to improve skills for health and sustainability. GCDA's SE Ten also runs a social enterprise called Greenwich Kitchen Catering that provides healthy and sustainable food, and also kitchen space for hire to other enterprises.
	School Food Matters: a charity campaigning for fresh sustainable food in schools and promoting food education through cooking, growing and visits to farms.
	Shellfish Association of Great Britain: the industry body for shellfish producers, which aims to assist and promote the sustainable development of the UK shellfish industry.

 

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Funders of Sustainable Fish Cities

The following organisations (in alphabetical order) are generously providing funds to help with running the Sustainable Fish City campaign, or have done so in the past (since our launch in 2011). We are very grateful for their support.
 

The BBC Widlife Fund (no longer operational) supported Sustainable Fish City in its work to build a better market for fish that has been managed and caught in a way that conserves wildlife and precious marine ecosystems. The BBC Wildlife Fund, supported by donations from BBC viewers, contributed towards Sustainable Fish City's early campaign development and employment of a project officer to pursue campaign aims.
 

Sustainable Fish City received a grant in 2012/13 from the European Fisheries Fund to exploit opportunities presented by London 2012's adoption of a sustainable fish policy. This aims to influence the wider catering sector - particularly through adoption of sustainable fish buying policies in large workplaces, such as sponsors of the London 2012 Games.

 

From 2017 to 2020, Sustainable Fish Cities received support from the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund (EMFF), to grow our network, engage with more chefs and large fish-serving organisations, and develop the market for UK landed sustainable fish.
 

The Esmee Fairbairn Foundation is supporting Sustainable Fish Cities in 2014 as part of the Sustainable Food Cities Network.

 

The Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation is supporting a partnership with Seafood Legacy Japan in 2017, in which we are aiming to create a sustainable fish legacy for the Tokyo Olympic Games in 2020.
 

The John Ellerman Foundation supported Sustainable Fish City in 2011 and 2014 by contributing towards Sustainable Fish City's early campaign development and the employment of a project officer to pursue campaign aims.
 

In the early stages of Sustainable Fish City, the Mayor of London's Food Programme (part of the Greater London Authority, GLA) supported public sector catering aspects of the initiative, and worked in partnership with Sustain to help influence the London 2012 Food Vision standards. Sustainable Fish City now receives valuable practical support from members of the independent London Food Board and the GLA's Food Programme team and is an affiliated project in the implementation programme of the Mayor's London Food Strategy. 
 

The Waterloo Foundation supported development of  Sustainable Fish City communications work, to help take the campaign messages and straightforward sustainable fish advice to a much wider audience.
 

 

The Garfield Weston Foundation kindly supported us in 2012-13 and 2015-16, in growing the network of towns and cities that are working on the Sustainable Fish Cities campaign. With their help, and working with the Sustainable Food Cities network, there are now sixteen towns and cities following our model. We have also been able to work with some of the largest UK caterers, suppliers and restaurant chains to adopt sustainable fish buying policies and practices.