Aquaculture eco-certification schemes offer the promise of improved aquaculture sustainability by providing market benefits to producers that meet a set of pre-defined sustainability criteria. These schemes operationalize sustainability through a set of written sustainability criteria and the process that producers must go through to obtain certified status. However, sustainability can have different meanings as illustrated by differences between eco-certification schemes. Where fisheries eco-certification schemes can rely on established concepts such as maximum sustainable yield to define sustainability, aquaculture eco-certification schemes must define sustainability for themselves; that is, they must determine what is/are the issues that eco-certification schemes should address. This has resulted in eco-certification schemes developing and implementing different assemblages of criteria that reflect divergent understandings and prioritization of social and environmental sustainability.
As eco-certification schemes have evolved, so have aquaculture practices and policies including the Food and Agriculture Organization’s Ecosystem Approach to Aquaculture which calls for the integration of aquaculture within the wider ecosystem while promoting sustainable development, equity, and resilience of social-ecological systems. The Ecosystem Approach to Aquaculture provides an opportunity to analyse aquaculture eco-certification using a conceptualization of aquaculture sustainability developed outside of the structural and pragmatic requirements of eco-certification schemes. Therefore, the Ecosystem Approach to Aquaculture was adopted as a guiding framework in considering role of aquaculture eco-certification in creating desirable outcomes for the environment and society. Using marine salmon farming as an example, the role of eco-certification in aquaculture sustainability was explored through document analysis and interviews with people involved in the process of eco-certification. Results point to a need to recognize cultural and provisioning services within eco-certification criteria, challenges presented by a mismatch between the farm-scale application of eco-certification criteria and the improvement of ecosystem-level sustainability, as well as opportunities to address ecosystem-level sustainability throughout the process of eco-certification.