Mark over Blogfish has an interesting post about a seafood chef who has decided to revisit the definition of the term “sustainable seafood.”

 Which seems like a good opportunity for me to call attention to a report released just last year:

… just over half (54%) of consumers claim any familiarity at all with the term “sustainability” and most of these consumers cannot define it appropriately upon probing.

Source: Hartman Group, 2007

Of course, “sustainability” is a true and worthy goal, and it is perfectly appropriate for fisheries professionals to debate what makes a “sustainable” harvest. But problems arrise when scientists and policy professionals debate it so long they lose sight of the fact that the term carries little weight in the consumer market. The term ”sustainable” simply won’t move many consumers to buy one fish over another, at least until somebody pours hundreds of millions of dollars into promoting the term, a la “organic.”

But why bother? I can think of much more urgent things to do with hundreds of millions of dollars. So here’s a better idea — let’s call “sustainable seafood”… drumroll please…
“Responsible Seafood”