Can This Green Campaigner Take Thai Union To The Next Sustainability Level?
A former NGO Senior Specialist has joined a major tuna corporation to take on the role as its North America Sustainability Director. Atuna sits down with Roxanne Nanninga to uncover how she hopes to change the way Thai Union operates.
Roxanne Nanninga was far from hesitant when the role of Sustainability Director became available, describing it as an “exciting opportunity to be part of implementing change on a large scale”. For her, this was an important selling point as at her previous job, she was only able to influence change but now she feels she is at the forefront of carrying out strategies to make a difference.
As a former Senior Specialist of Seafood Markets Strategy at the US based NGO Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), Nanninga worked with seafood businesses to inform and support them with fisheries management and conservation work. The US based, nonprofit environmental group works on a range of issues including global warming, ecosystem restoration, oceans and human health. Reflected in its tagline ‘Finding the ways that work’, EDF’s philosophy revolves heavily around working in partnership with “leading companies to achieve environmental results”, its website states.
Talking about her two roles, Nanninga describes them as “two sides of the same coin” because at the NGO she was “working from a conservation community’s perspective to reach out to businesses”. And now, her job as the Sustainability Director involves working from within the business community while communicating with the conservation world and NGOs.
Completing a Masters in Environmental Management from Duke University, that involved studying fisheries, economics and business, she gained academic knowledge in the seafood sector. Nanninga states she had studied tuna, describing it as a “keystone species” but with little work experience in the sector, this is her first role where she has “become so deeply involved” with the tuna industry.
The prospect of moving to a corporation was an “exciting opportunity” as Nanninga felt it was the chance for her to implement real change. An NGO is able to lobby governments and industry members but it is up to the industry to take up the proposed policies and make the real difference, Nanninga explains. Thus she now feels she has a great deal of opportunity to both influence and implement programs in North America, as part of Thai Union’s SeaChange program.
SeaChange is Thai Union’s global sustainability strategy. It has four main project areas: safe and legal labor, responsible sourcing, responsible operations, and people and communities. Overhearing the interview, the Global Sustainability Director, Dr. Darian McBain, adds that SeaChange gives TU a “strategic and cohesive approach” to applying sustainable policies across North America, Europe and Thailand.
Now as the North America Sustainability Director, Nanninga will work with Thai Union’s North American brands including Chicken of the Sea International, Chicken of the Sea Frozen Foods and “to some degree” US Pet Nutrition. She says she aims to implement responsible sourcing programs such as obtaining tuna from fisheries that are MSC certified or in a Fisheries Improvement Project (FIP).
The firm has however been working on the traceability of its fishery products, which Nanninga points out through the ‘Trace Your Can’ initiative. The Chicken of the Sea can-tracker program allows customers to trace back where their tuna is sourced from, including the fishing method used and the processing location. This is available on all of Chicken of the Sea tuna cans and there are now plans to roll out to salmon, mackerel and sardines.
Nanninga tells Atuna, “My mission is to implement SeaChange across our North America brands’ supply chains. Much is taking place already. My first task then is to organize these efforts into a unified strategy.” Early collaborations include partnering with Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, California, where they are doing “interesting work, planning collaborative workshops and forums”. The former NGO employee says she will be looking for more ways to interact with the public to better understand what customers are looking for when it comes to seafood sustainability.
This work will however be “challenging” as accomplishing sustainability is “never easy” regardless of the perspective one is taking. It is a large undertaking to uptake all the proposed plans not just within North America but also working with the global team, she adds. Nanninga stresses, “We have set ambitious goals for ourselves and there is a substantial amount to achieve” including “encouraging those outside of our organization to meet our standards,” such as the vessels and suppliers that TU sources from around the world.
With an increasing number of fishery stakeholders collaborating to improve fisheries through FIPs, this has aroused concern as some believe FIPs are being used as a way to avoid having to work towards MSC certification. Processors are also opting to source from FIPs, as opposed to sourcing MSC certified products. Thai Union has set the goal to source 100 percent of its branded tuna from fisheries that are either MSC certified or in an improvement project, working towards MSC standards. This includes a commitment of achieving a minimum of 75 percent by 2020. Despite MSC standards being seen as the highest bar for sustainable seafood, TU has not suggested that it will push for MSC certifications over FIPs.
TU is yet to source a large proportion of its tuna from sustainably certified sources, despite the marketing arm of the PNA’s MSC certified tuna, Pacifical, previously stating that it is ready to supply the firm.
Thai Union recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding to launch a FIP for the pole and line yellowfin, skipjack and bigeye fishery in the south and southeast coastal areas of Brazil. This comes after two FIPs were announced in the Indian and Eastern Atlantic Ocean earlier this year. Through the SeaChange program, Thai Union claims it is investing a staggering USD 90 million in a bid to secure a greater supply of sustainable tuna through the development of 11 new FIPs. The corporation states the investment will go towards the goal to have all of its tuna sourced from MSC certified fisheries or from a FIP. It has not given a deadline for this ambitious objective.
After questioning how the company will ensure the FIPs it is involved in will lead to MSC certification within the five year timeframe that is usually proposed, McBain stated the firm is firstly making sure a “comprehensive FIP” is in place. The company is “committed to publishing the progress on FisheriesProgress.org” in order to ensure transparency. With FIPs usually involving multiple partners working in collaboration, TU expresses that it will work with all of its partners to “get a FIP to the end point of MSC certification within the timeframe”. If this was not able to happen, McBain tells us they would reestablish plans to make sure the end goal is achieved.
While Thai Union is now keen to show the ways in which it is working towards improving sustainability, it did come under fire after a Greenpeace campaign described its sustainability and labor standards as “destructive”. In 2015, a global Greenpeace campaign against Thai Union and its tuna products, resulted in negative press surrounding the business.
Greenpeace launched the campaign to urge the world’s largest canned tuna company to take “urgent and far-reaching steps” to eliminate “destructive” practices from its supply chains. The NGO campaigned for two years until Thai Union agreed on a package of reforms. McBain says the two parties agreed on an “ambitious set of targets” after “intensive negotiations”.
The relationship has now taken a dramatic turn with Greenpeace USA calling for other companies to follow TU’s steps towards better sustainability. Greenpeace USA Oceans Campaigner David Pinsky said TU’s commitments to fight IUU fishing and poor labor standards have the “potential to transform the tuna sector and global seafood industry”. However, in the Greenpeace USA 2017 Tuna Shopping Guide, Chicken of the Sea is still in the red zone and the NGO recommends consumers opt for the 14 other canned tuna brands rated as more sustainable options.
When questioned how Nanninga felt about this, having come from a non-governmental organization herself, she was keen to make it clear that “Greenpeace is not the same as all NGOs” as it operates in a “different way”. From a personal perspective, Nanninga says she had no sense of negativity towards the corporation, particularly since “EDF takes a partnership approach to working with businesses to improve environmental outcomes”.
This is not the first time Nanninga has been part of an organization that has received criticism with some questioning EDF’s links to large corporations, including McDonald’s and Walmart. The long serving President of the organization, Fred Krupp, has been condemned by more traditional environmentalists. Reports have gone as far as describing him as a ‘corporate stooge’ due to EDF’s partnerships with corporate giants.
While Thai Union has undoubtedly made improvements, the progress of the FIPs are likely to show how far TU has really come from once being “seriously implicated in horrendous human rights and environmental abuses” according to Greenpeace. It may be early days for Roxanne Nanninga but she hopes to work on the improvements and take Thai Union further in its bid to be “leading agents of change”.