corporate social responsibility

Our commitment to CSR is increasingly important to how others perceive us, and our CSR efforts help us to create strong relationships built on trust with customers, suppliers, partners, and other stakeholders.

The following principles lie at the heart of how we continue to shape our approach to operating responsibly:

Governance and Ethics: Our governance systems enable us to manage risks, plan for long-term continuity, and foster sustainable growth.

Supply Chain: Working closely with our suppliers to maintain high standards for ethics, labour rights, health, safety and the environment. Our expectation is for every employee at Arctic Traders and the companies we work with to behave ethically in everything they do.

Our People: Helping our employees develop their talents and achieve their full potential in a collaborative, inclusive and healthy working environment.

Society: Understanding the challenges faced by people at home and overseas and to support initiatives which create economic development opportunities and help communities thrive.

Environment: Working towards limiting the environmental impact of both our own and our partners operations.

Sustainable Seafood is an issue that was rarely talked about 10 years ago. Since that time, stakeholders in the global fishing industry have come to understand its importance. Alongside this mounting awareness has grown a number of management bodies such as the Marine Stewardship Council, Friends of the Sea, Global GAP and the Aquaculture Stewardship Council who aim to provide a framework within which fishermen, processors and buyers can be satisfied that they are operating in a sustainable manner. The situation is constantly changing and more management bodies to control global standards for wild fish and aquaculture sustainability are being created in what is clearly 'work in progress'. To many this can lead to confusion as stakeholders are keen to 'do the right thing'.

At Arctic Traders we recognise the importance of engaging with the various management bodies. It is key to our future business success that we work with all stakeholders that offer a pro-active, pragmatic and effective approach to protecting and safeguarding fish stocks and their ecosystems for the future.

We actively encourage our supply partners to achieve the highest standards of CSR to include accreditations for Sustainability (MSC, Global Gap, ASC) and Ethical Trading (ETI).

Arctic Traders together with our partners embrace the journey of responsible sourcing and ethical trading that we believe to be an essential part of our identity.

Arctic Traders does not source seafood species that :

• Are vulnerable or endangered
• Come from poorly managed or illegal, unregulated and undocumented (IUU) Fisheries
• Are caught or farmed using methods that are detrimental to other marine species and /or habitats.

Wild Catch

Arctic Traders supply wild fish/seafood caught in the most responsible manner. We look for opportunities to source from and promote those fisheries that have been certified to the Marine Stewardship Council's  environmental standard for well-managed and sustainable fisheries.  Arctic Traders is an active Chain of Custody Member of the MSC.

All Wild catch is traceable back to the boats that caught it to ensure that the fishing method is known, and that the catch is legal (not from IUU vessels).

Farmed Fish

Almost half of all seafood consumed throughout the world now comes from aquaculture. Arctic Traders recognises the importance that aquaculture plays in meeting the soaring global demand for seafood.

We work and actively support those fish farmers who have been certified to the Global GAP and Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) standards. Both Global GAP and ASC are industry recognised management programmes and are designed to reassure consumers about how Aquaculture products are farmed by minimising the detrimental environmental impacts of farming operations and reducing the use of chemical inputs.

Arctic Traders continue to work only with those farms that can provide full traceability, ensuring we know where our fish originate from.