VALDUVIS: an innovative way of assessing the sustainability of fishing activities

In 2014, Integrated Sustainability Assessment (ISA) was introduced as a framework for managing the transition towards sustainability in the Belgian fishery. As a part of the ISA process, the Institute for Agricultural and Fisheries Research (ILVO) developed an indicator-based sustainability assessment tool (VALDUVIS). The VALDUVIS tool informs fishers about their performance on a set of 14 sustainability indicators (environmental, social and economic) for each fishing trip. This gives fishers insight in the sustainability of their specific actions and choices in relation to their colleagues and provides a basis for improving the sustainability of the fishing fleet. VALDUVIS uses official and high-resolution data flows (e.g. the fisher’s electronic logbook) to calculate sustainability scores. This allows for a ‘near real-time’ scoring, meaning that sustainability scores are available to fishers soon after landing the fish. Other than providing individual sustainability assessments, the VALDUVIS tool can be used for monitoring the progress towards sustainability in the Belgian fishing fleet. Stakeholder consultation and participation played a key role in the development of the tool, which enhances the support of the wider fishing sector and assures the relevance of the indicators and the comprehensibility of the tool. The VALDUVIS tool offers a cost-effective alternative to known certification schemes and shines a new light on data use for sustainability assessment. The tool is strongly supported by all major stakeholders in the Belgian fishing sector and its use is currently being tested on a subset of vessels. This presentation describes the development of the VALDUVIS assessment tool in the ISA framework and outlines the benefits and potential applications of the tool.