Partnerships and certifications

With the world more connected and interdependent than ever, participants and stakeholders throughout entire value chains benefit from working together to produce results with lasting global impact. That’s why we partner with our suppliers, customers, researchers, and others to design sustainability solutions and actively contribute to an ecosystem of initiatives gathering diverse stakeholders.

We also contribute to and utilize leading certifications and standards for our ingredients and raw materials. This helps ensure we have a ready supply of these ingredients that meet the scientific understanding of what is sustainable.

In addition to the information on this page about individual partnerships and certifications, you can find more information on how our work seeks to mitigate climate and biodiversity risks here.

 

Partnership across our industry

Because sustainability issues are often much larger than any one company’s supply chain, collective action – supported by NGOs, academic researchers, and governments – can be a necessary foundation for driving change. That’s why Cargill has long worked with multiple stakeholders across a range of sustainability topics, with the goal of strengthening work activities and creating greater impact than any organization could achieve alone. A leading example of this approach is in the sustainability of marine ingredients – a focal point in aqua feeds.

For example, for nearly 20 years we have worked with Sustainable Fisheries Partnership (SFP). We were an early adopter of SFP’s FishSource program to analyze the sustainability of the fisheries in our sourcing network. Since 2013, we have provided funding for the publication of SFP’s Reduction Fisheries Report, which provides important insights into the stocks and management of key fishery resources.

Additionally, as members of The Marine Ingredients Organisation (IFFO), we worked closely with our peers to develop responsible fishmeal and fish oil supply chains. IFFO’s continuous tracking of marine ingredient production, regulations, and markets helps companies like us develop sustainability strategies and work programs to implement them.

These and other partnerships led to a collaboration breakthrough in 2021: the Global Roundtable on Marine Ingredients. Established and jointly run by SFP and IFFO, the Roundtable comprises 14 members – Cargill among them – working to increase the availability of sustainable marine ingredients. These examples demonstrate how stakeholders working together across an ecosystem of organizations can more effectively drive change.

 

Membership

	North Atlantic Pelagic Advocacy Group (NAPA) formed in 2020 to encourage and help build solutions for improved management of the mackerel, herring and blue whiting fisheries in the North Atlantic. Despite strong messaging from this group, a stalemate persists between governments, making our continued efforts more important than ever.
	We are a key voice in the multi-stakeholder Global Roundtable on Marine Ingredients, working to drive environmental and social improvements in key fisheries globally. Current focus regions include West Africa and South and Southeast Asia. Additionally, we are involved with a workstream on Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs) for marine ingredients.
	As proud members of IFFO, we support the body’s efforts to advocate for responsible use of marine resources for fishmeal and fish oil production.

 

Committee representation

	As members of Seafood Business for Ocean Stewardship (SeaBOS), we work with leading industry companies and sector researchers to advance global seafood sustainability, committing to timebound goals. Helene Ziv-Douki, Leader of Cargill Animal Nutrition & Health – EMEA & Global Salmon, serves as SeaBOS Chair. We lead the taskForce on illegal, unregulated, and unreported (IUU) fishing and modern slavery at sea, engage actively in the Keystone Project on West Coast Africa, while actively working to support other task forces and keystone projects.
	Holding a seat on both the Governing Body Committee and the Social & Ethical Committee, we are helping shape the direction of the MarinTrust program and ensure its standards and their implementation are rooted in the best available science and practices and are applicable on the ground in our sourcing and operating regions.
	Active since 2021, the IDH Aquaculture Working Group on Environmental Footprint aims to improve measurement and reduction of the environmental footprint of farmed seafood products. Cargill joined in 2024 and is working on the greenhouse gas (GHG) measurements approach and partnering with other members to enable GHG reductions in targeted shrimp value chains.
	On the ProTerra Foundation’s Stakeholders Council, we provide recommendations to the Board and Secretariat, and expert advice that helps companies embed their sustainability strategies and gives other stakeholders assurance of the robust implementation of the ProTerra Standard. We are members of the Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (MRV) Committee, developing a process by which deforestation and human rights requirements could be verified in our supply chains. We also are engaging with ProTerra on the development of an LCA that reflects the great progress in GHG emissions measurements by our suppliers in Brazil. Additionally, we are engaged with the Aquaculture Dialogue on Sustainable Soy Sourcing from Brazil, a group convened by ProTerra comprising soy processors under the ProTerra Standard and aqua feed producers using their products. The group was convened to pre-competitively address key sustainability issues in soy production, ranging from local community rights to traceability and LCAs, as well as preparation for EUDR. The group also works to improve communication along the value chain on the important details of soy production in Brazil under ProTerra certification. A key outcome of the group has been the development of an MRV protocol, which soy suppliers in Brazil are using to demonstrate their compliance to their deforestation- and conversion-free (DCF) commitments outside ProTerra.
	We contribute to the European Feed Manufacturers’ Federation (FEFAC) committees for sustainability and for fish feed, engaging in work on key issues of sustainability of feeds in Europe. This includes LCA work for the PEFCR Feed for Food-Producing Animals and GFLI, updating the FEFAC Soy Sourcing Guidelines, developing sector-specific professional guidance for the implementation of the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), and the FEFAC Feed Sustainability Charter 2030.

 

Associate membership and general partnership and participation

	As an associate member of the Global Salmon Initiative, we play an active role in supporting the sustainable development of salmon aquaculture and contribute our knowledge and expertise to the initiative’s working groups, including sourcing of feed, fish health and welfare, climate footprint and improving sector transparency.
	We continue our partnership in the Millennial Salmon project. Working together with research institutes, novel ingredient suppliers, and a grocery retailer, the research initiative is driving the continued commercialization of insect meal and algal oil as feed ingredients.
World Wildlife Fund	We continue to collaborate with World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and other NGOs – leveraging their expertise across fisheries, aquaculture, markets and finance, traceability, and communications. With WWF, Finance Earth, and several other major companies, we conceptualized, designed and launched the Fisheries Improvement Fund (FIF), an innovative blue finance mechanism to accelerate progress with Fishery Improvement Projects (FIPs), which are critical to ensuring productive and healthy fish stocks and ecosystems that underpin the future health of the farmed salmon industry. We are also collaborating with WWF to strengthen digital, full-chain interoperable traceability in our company and across our supply chains, aligned with the Global Dialogue on Seafood Traceability (GDST) standards. WWF’s efforts in these topics are generously funded by the Walmart Foundation.
	SFP works with industry at all levels of the supply chain to achieve steady and continuous improvements in fisheries and seafood production. Cargill’s long-term relationship with SFP is an example of how industry and NGOs can support one another. We continue to find their fisheries sustainability research and the pre-competitive platforms they help manage to be very helpful. They provide us with analysis and expertise on improving marine ingredient sustainability and protecting human rights. Their annual reduction report helps us track overall performance of key sources of marine ingredients.
	Finance Earth manages the Fisheries Improvement Fund with the aim of mobilizing private investment in fisheries improvements globally.  Cargill has partnered with them to explore opportunities to establish and invest in more FIPs and also invested over $400,000 in the fund, supporting projects in Chile, China, India, and Japan.
	The Sustainable Shrimp Partnership (SSP) is a pre-competitive ecosystem of Ecuadorian producers and stakeholders committed to transforming shrimp aquaculture by proving that shrimp can be raised responsibly through promoting best practices for all aspects of the value chain. As members, we are partnering with the SSP to support shrimp farmers in implementing sustainable and successful practices.

 

Certifications for our products

Certifications are an important form of assurance for the ingredients we use and the aqua feeds we provide to our customers. We respond to our customers’ requirements for feed certifications through major frameworks relevant to aquaculture. To support these frameworks and our own commitments to sustainable supply chains, we also rely on key standards for fisheries and DCF supply chains. The certifications and frameworks we use include:

 

ASC Feed Standard certification

The new Feed Standard from the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) builds on the organization’s established approach to responsible aquaculture and covers fish feed mills as well as ingredient suppliers. The standard aims to ensure that fish feed mills meet strict environmental and social requirements and use environmentally friendly raw materials. From October 2025 onward, ASC aquaculture farmers must use ASC-certified feed to maintain ASC certification for their salmon.

Cargill feed mills have previously supplied ASC-compliant feed to our ASC-certified farmers. We are now in the process of certifying our mills according to the new Feed Standard to continue to support our customers, including requirements for transparency for each unit of certification. Please find information for those units in each country here: