The Product Environmental Footprint Category Rules (PEFCR) for Unprocessed Marine Fish for Human Consumption is a set of guidelines developed by the European Commission to standardize the calculation and communication of the environmental footprint of marine fish products. This PEFCR aims to provide a framework for companies to assess the environmental impact of their fish products, from the moment they are caught or farmed to when they reach consumers.
A Product Environmental Footprint Category Rule (PEFCR) is a set of rules that specify how the Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) method shall be applied for a specific product category.
The PEF method is a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) based method to quantify the relevant environmental impacts of products. It builds on existing approaches and international standards. The development of PEFCRs is a part of the EU policy for sustainable production and consumption, the “single market for green products” policy, which intends to make the product's environmental properties a part of its economy. To be able to achieve that, the environmental footprint of the product has to be calculated and documented in terms of a set of known and trusted rules, a PEFCR.
The PEFCR for Marine Fish started in 2014 as a part of the second wave of PEFCRs pilots, and it continued until May 2016 when it was decided to stop the process as it became clear that it did not exist the necessary data to develop a Marine Fish PEFCR in compliance with the requirements of the PEFCR Guideline and due to time-constraint it was unmanageable to finish within the timeline of the pilot phase.
Now, with the seafood LCA data that is available, screening and supporting studies were performed that led to a methodology for calculating the environmental footprint of marine fish products being approved by the relevant bodies in the European Commission. The Product Environmental Footprint Category Rules for Unprocessed Marine Fish for Human Consumption (wild caught and farmed) is available for download here.
