The Global Tuna Alliance (GTA) is well under way to fulfilling its 2025 Pledge Toward Sustainable Tuna (25PST) after its first annual review summarising progress so far revealed that GTA partners had collectively already achieved more than a third of their performance targets.

The 25PST was launched last year and committed a range of signatories across the global tuna supply chain to ensure that the tuna industry meets the highest possible standards of environmental performance and social responsibility within five years.

The extensive report, published this week, discloses anonymised results of a self-completed questionnaire by GTA partners rating their actions against three key commitments: improving traceability of tuna, environmental sustainability and social responsibility. The findings show that partners had collectively achieved 38% of their KPIs with the biggest progress coming from environmental sustainability (which includes such actions as sourcing tuna from fisheries employing sustainable fishing practices) at 43%.

The progress made to date will have far-reaching consequences for the tuna industry. Companies partnering with the GTA collectively form one of the world’s most extensive networks of seafood wholesalers and suppliers to the consumer, particularly tuna, purchasing 1.27 million tonnes (20% of global production) worth US$1.3 billion in 2020 alone. They employ 1.2 million people in 116 countries with a combined annual turnover of over US$255 billion.

With a note of caution, GTA Executive Director Dr. Tom Pickerell heaped praise on the report’s findings: “For our partners to have achieved such great progress so early on shows a deft understanding of the urgency in which we must act to create a tuna industry that is sustainable for future generations.

“While it should be noted that there is a large degree of variance between individual partner performance, the report is useful in giving our partners the opportunity to compare their progress against competitors and provides our staff with the information they need to create targeted support programs that will assist in partners fulfilling their commitments.”

GTA partners have also shared their appreciation of the report with one commenting:

“The GTA progress survey has been a great prompt for us to review our sourcing requirements and public commitments this year to allow us to demonstrate improvements for the 2022 survey.”

Another said “We appreciate all the work GTA performed to provide these valuable dashboards. The information gives a clear roadmap for our next actions.”

The GTA has committed to reviewing and transparently sharing their progress each year with a range of self-completed questionnaires and third-party audits.

ENDS

Notes to editors:

The Global Tuna Alliance (GTA) is an independent group of retailers and tuna supply chain companies who are committed to achieving more transparent, socially responsible, and environmentally sustainable tuna fisheries. Operating over 10,000 stores in 21 countries across five continents, they use their collective purchasing power to influence the policies set out by the tuna Regional Fisheries Management Organisations (tRFMOs).