Progress! Walmart Updates its Sustainable Seafood Policy

Big Box stores like Walmart are one of many Goliaths in our industrialized food system. Luckily, a critical mass of Davids (and Johns and Katies and countless other consumers) can push those stores into greener initiatives.

As Change.org recently reported, Walmart seemed to have stalled on its sustainable seafood commitments. The Big Box store said in 2006 that by the end of 2011, it would only sell fish certified as sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC). But as Greenpeace reported in its most recent "Carting Away the Oceans" report, which ranks stores on their seafood sustainability programs, Walmart hadn't moved forward with this goal at all since 2009. Even according to Walmart's own 2010 Global Sustainability Report, only 55 percent of the store's seafood offerings were MSC-certified. Could it be that Walmart made empty promises to its droves of consumers?

That's what it seemed like — until Greenpeace and Change.org stepped in, that is. Greenpeace recently launched a petition targeting Walmart and Supervalu, one of the worst supermarket chains when it comes to selling unsustainable seafood. The petition asked the stores to green up their acts and immediately implement clear sustainable seafood policies. More than 58,000 Change.org members signed the petition so far, and it's starting to make big waves.

While Supervalu has yet to make any kind of plan to protect the world's oceans, Walmart recently reiterated its commitment to sourcing sustainable fish. The store says (pdf) that it will still require "all seafood products we sell to become third-party certified as sustainable using Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), Best Aquaculture Practice (BAP), or equivalent standards." For fisheries and suppliers that aren't certified, these operations must start developing certification plans by May of this year and have these plans finalized by June of 2012. If they fail to comply, Walmart won't buy from these purveyors anymore.

The scheme is certainly far from perfect: MSC certification has been criticized as too lax, slapping a "sustainable" stamp on fisheries that are anything but. And requiring fisheries to merely have a finalized "plan" for certification by 2012 is hardly a rigorous ask. Still, Walmart's reiteration of its commitment to a sustainable seafood program shows that the Big Box store is hearing our demands.

"Greenpeace is encouraged to see Walmart re-engaging with the critical issue of sustainable seafood," said Casson Trenor, Greenpeace's seafood campaigner. "That said, the language in their new 'restatement' relies heavily on some dubious certification options. A company with the size and scope of Walmart has a responsibility to steward our planet thoughtfully — Walmart leadership should be pushing to improve fishing and aquaculture practices around the world, not just complying with the lowest common denominator."

Walmart may still lag behind, but some progress is better than no progress. As for Supervalu, the supermarket chain still falls into the "no progress" category, refusing to implement any kind of sustainable seafood plan and continuing to sell threatened species of fish like shark, Chilean sea bass, and red snapper.

Walmart's recent actions show that consumer demand is having an impact, but we've got to keep up the pressure. Sign Greenpeace's petition, and tell both Walmart and Supervalu that they have an obligation to protect the world's oceans.

Photo credit: Walmart Stores via Flickr