Our Journey to a Global Responsible Seafood Commitment

For Iberostar, responsible consumption of seafood means the intersection of prioritizing environmental sustainability, the livelihoods and safe working practices, and the economic viability of fisheries. We focus on having a positive impact on the environment, communities and local economy. 

Our seafood program began in 2018, by partnering with the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) and the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) in certifying key restaurants in our hotels under their Chain of Custody (CoC) standard and offering MSC and ASC certified seafood. We proudly became the first hotel chain in Southern Europe, the Dominican Republic and Mexico to be MSC/ASC Chain of Custody Certified after we certified seven restaurants in 2019. Our commitment in 2020 continued as we certified an additional seven restaurants, bringing our total to 14.  In 2019, our partnership with FishWise and the World Wildlife Fund US (WWF-US) allowed us to provide training to our staff and start collecting basic Key Data Elements (KDEs) to better understand our sourcing, as well as, commit to removing endangered and / or red-list species from its sourcing entirely. 

In March of 2020, we publicly announced our commitment to source 100% of our seafood from responsible sources by 2025. This included clearly defining “Responsible Seafood” as being: products sourced from fisheries and farms with certifications that were recognized by the Global Sustainable Seafood Initiative (GSSI), rated yellow or green by the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch program, or in a credible Fishery or Aquaculture Improvement Project. 

Despite an unprecedented year of challenges due to the pandemic, we achieved the sourcing  of 41% of responsible seafood. Our team's capacity to adapt and mobilize contributed to us exceeding our goal of 65% responsible seafood sourcing globally in 2021 and is driving our success this year by reaching 75% of responsible seafood sourcing.

As we continued to collect data and understand our sourcing practices, we realized there was a need to address the sustainability of small-scale fisheries and farms in the destinations in which we operate. Furthermore, the importance of local fisheries and products in securing fishers’ livelihoods,led us to rethink how we define responsible seafood in order to include local fisheries/farms serving local markets that have not been previously assessed.  Because of multiple constraints including costs, methodologies of assessment and market access it is often not feasible to launch traditional fisheries/aquaculture improvement projects or become certified. 

The challenge for Iberostar, whose seafood portfolio extends over 200 species, is to be strategic in our approach and optimize our available resources to achieve our long-term objectives. Through our “Lifting Up Local” initiative, we work to develop partnerships that can support our work in-country and leverage existing initiatives to avoid duplicative efforts while creating new pathways for improvement that support Iberostar’s goal of sourcing 100% responsible seafood by 2025. This work was originally in line with SDG14 (i.e.,14.b) and supported the development of (or existing) improvement pathways towards sustainable harvest management for local fisheries and the communities that depended on them. 

Iberostar’s “Lifting Up Local” program has evolved to address this through a more holistic approach to sustainability, so that we can support strategies that go beyond SDG 14. For instance, supporting local producers and sourcing directly from them increases their income and economic growth (SDG 1 & 8), thus alleviating poverty and ensuring food access (SDG 2) . Also, working with local communities helps provide capacity and training towards more sustainable production and consumption of seafood (SDG 12), and increase visibility of women’s existing participation in these fisheries, as well as provide leadership training (SDG 5).

Working on fisheries improvements also requires developing the domestic market and support from other buyers to create the demand for more responsible seafood. Iberostar, as a leader in responsible tourism, is well positioned to bring the hospitality sector together and work towards identifying opportunities for pre-competitive collaboration.  In addition, investing in processing facilities and creating the logistics and distribution channels for these products is necessary, in order to maintain product traceability and engage fisheries and farms in best practices (SDG 4) so that they can continue accessing these markets. Government buy-in on these initiatives can also be challenging as they may not necessarily have the capacity to enforce specific regulations or activities which fall under their jurisdiction (SDG 16). The hospitality sector can effectively come together and leverage their relationships with government entities to seek support for these projects. 

Adriana Sanchez, Responsible Seafood Strategy Director of Iberostar