Environmental Policy

At Scottish Sea Farms we are committed to sustainable production and the continuous improvement of our performance to reduce and eliminate environmental impacts and achieve the highest standards of welfare for our fish.

Our environmental policy has been put in place to protect the delicate environments in which we operate.  These include Loch Creran - a site of international importance and a proposed Special Area of Conservation for reefs formed by Serpula Vermicularis.  To ensure the reefs' protection, our South Shian 'Pump Ashore' project underwent an impact assessment, which was undertaken with the guidance of Scottish Natural Heritage.  The result of the assessment led to extensive modifications to the project, which included the involvement of expert contractors.

We have operated our Environmental Management System to ISO14001 standards since October 2000.  Our commitment to this system has been reinforced through annual surveillance visits and re-certification in 2003.

We are committed to the following environmental objectives:

• For all operations, our environmental strategy will set leading standards for the Industry and ensure continuous and long term improvements
• Our operations will be governed by the principles of sustainable production and long term care for the environment
• We will improve the knowledge of all our employees to increase their understanding and awareness of the relationships between our activities and the environment
• Our policy will be based on achieving the highest standards of fish welfare
• Our farming activities aim to limit any possible impact to wild fish stocks
• We will conduct our operations to ensure the optimal utilisation of all natural resources and the prevention of pollution 
• We will conduct our operations to ensure compliance as a minimum with all relevant legislation, Industry standards and customer codes of practice. 

We have also established general and local environmental targets, with detailed action plans and monitoring programmes, with the aim of achieving continuous improvement. 

Some specific key areas are identified below:

• Salmon feed suppliers contracted to only use sustainable fishmeal sources
• Overall target of zero fish escapes through effective stock management
• Lice monitoring and control to be at least as strict as National Lice Treatment Strategy guidelines (SQS), with zero gravid lice our goal.
• Aim to have all active sites participating in Area Management Agreements
• The Economic Feed Conversion Factor (ECR) should meet targeted levels on a crop by crop basis.

This policy is subject to review as required by the ISO14001 standard.