Our Five-Year Strategy

Our Five-Year Strategy

We are committed to realising harvest strategies for tuna fisheries, avoidance of illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing (IUU) products, improved tuna traceability and environmental sustainability, and progressing human rights in tuna fisheries.

An organisation with a strong purpose is one which inspires higher levels of trust and confidence among its Partners and stakeholders, and is more likely to grow sustainably. It is also more likely to be efficient, with strong accountability and a motivated team.

Therefore, this strategy, launched at the start of 2025, focuses on clearly articulating our vision in a way that lays out a shared purpose for Partners and stakeholders to follow. It makes clear our ambition to achieve these common objectives and outlines stepwise parameters for progress.

To carry out our diverse goals for driving change in the global tuna industry, we focus our work under three key focus areas: Blue Resilience, Blue Community, and Blue Integrity.

GTA Partners can engage in these work programmes through two primary means: direct country engagement and supply chain improvements.

Direct country engagement consists of encouraging countries to ratify and implement legislation, improve compliance measures, and promote sustainable fisheries management practices as part of a thriving international economy.

Encouraging supply chain improvements involves lowering barriers which may prevent action by countries, such as by improving in-country conditions or practices through resource, knowledge, and capacity building at all levels of the supply chain.

Approaching these key focus areas also necessitates understanding and evaluating risks in global tuna supply chains.

In March 2021, the GTA, Friends of Ocean Action, and the World Economic Forum introduced the 2025 Pledge towards Sustainable Tuna (25PST), calling for signatories to commit to working towards a global tuna sector that meets the highest standards of environmental performance and social responsibility. In early 2022, these parties collectively agreed that 25PST should cease to exist as a standalone endeavour, instead becoming the core structure of the GTA’s first 5-year strategy. The former 25PST is a UN SDG ocean commitment.

Now, we are proud to be in the second iteration of our strategic direction, carrying many of the same priorities and frameworks for accountability as were incorporated in the first 5-year plan, but honing in more intentionally on priority work areas for partners and other tuna industry stakeholders. We are committed to moving the needle on these aligned goals, and will be publicly reporting progress on an annual basis based on a comprehensive monitoring and evaluation plan developed in conjunction with the 2025-2030 strategy.

Blue Resilience

Resilient tuna stocks and associated ecosystems are of primary importance to ensure sustainable tuna fisheries for future generations.

Tuna is a fundamentally important global food and economic resource, serving as the backbone of many countries in terms of food supply and economic stability. Ensuring sustainable and resilient tuna fisheries and wider marine ecosystems is vital to ensuring a healthy global tuna supply for the future.

Our actions

Blue Community

We recognize that people are at the heart and center of global tuna and their rights must be ensured in all aspects of tuna supply.

Ensuring the rights of workers and communities involved in tuna fishing and supply is paramount, recognizing that all people deserve decent labour conditions and fair pay when working in the tuna supply chain.

Our actions

Blue Integrity

Ensuring transparent and traceable tuna is vital to ensuring responsible sourcing and compliance with the rules that secure sustainability and social rights.

 

Ensuring a traceable tuna supply chain and combatting Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing are key to promoting sustainable global tuna fisheries and wider marine ecosystems. Traceability ensures responsible sourcing practices, while effectively combatting IUU fishing supports lawful operators and strengthens the delivery of sustainable fisheries management.

Our actions

Progress Tracker

A real point of difference for the GTA is the comprehensive annual tracking of our Partners’ progress. We know that in business, facts and figures matter, so GTA Partners take part in extensive and thorough tracking allowing us to analyse effectiveness and performance year on year, and measure the success of the five-year strategy.

In 2022, the GTA published its first progress report, collating the results of a self-completed, anonymous questionnaire by partners, carried out at the end of 2021. This survey tested Partners’ progress towards our three strategic objectives against a set of measurable KPIs.

Similar self-completed surveys will be carried out in 2022 and 2023.

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