Developing our recommendations

Recommendations guide the sustainable seafood movement

Businesses and seafood eaters around the world rely on our recommendations when purchasing seafood. Our rigorous, impartial, and transparent process provides trusted advice for everyone to make informed seafood decisions that help protect our ocean.

  • What goes into making a recommendation?

    Think of it as a four-part process, made up of standards, assessments, ratings, and recommendations. Our standards define our vision of environmentally sustainable practices for seafood production. Our assessments evaluate how specific fisheries or aquaculture operations measure up against our standards. Based on the results of an assessment, a fishery or aquaculture operation receives a rating of green, yellow or red. Ratings are then translated into recommendations, which is our advice to consumers and businesses. Recommendations include: Best Choice, Good Alternative, Avoid, and Certified.


  • Standards

  • Standards

    The Seafood Watch standards reflect the conservation ethic and mission of the Monterey Bay Aquarium, where we strive to see seafood fished and farmed in ways that promote the well-being of ocean and coastal ecosystems, including the people that depend on them. Our three foundational standards allow us to determine the environmental impacts of fisheries and aquaculture operations and identify current best practices and management measures that mitigate or prevent negative impacts. The standards can be applied to fisheries and aquaculture operations around the world – from small-scale or data-poor operations through industrial or data-rich environments. 

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  • Assessments

  • Assessments

    We assess the environmental impacts of the most common seafood items consumed in the U.S. market and rate their performance against our standards.

    Fisheries or aquaculture operations are assessed at the country- or regional-level, not at a company or brand-level. The benefit of this approach is that it allows us to examine the cumulative impacts of the industry in a given geography.

    Assessments follow a comprehensive five-step process to ensure all relevant information is collected and included. Assessments are routinely reviewed and updated to accurately reflect current practices and actualities.

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  • Ratings

  • Ratings

    Ratings consist of numerical scores that contribute to a green, yellow, or red-colored outcome. Numerical scores are determined by assessing the environmental performance of a fishery or aquaculture operation against the criteria in the corresponding Seafood Watch standard. The final rating color is based on the cumulative numerical score and the decision rules below. 

    • Green-rated: Low environmental risk with a numerical score of 3.3 to 5 for fisheries, 6.6 to 10 for aquaculture, and no red or critical criteria scores. 
    • Yellow-rated: Moderate environmental risk with a numerical score of 2.3 to 3.2 for fisheries, 3.3 to 6.5 for aquaculture, and no more than one red criterion and no critical criteria scores. 
    • Red-rated: High environmental risk with a numerical score of 0 to 2.2 for fisheries, 0 to 3.2 for aquaculture, or two or more red criteria or one or more critical criteria scores.

  • Recommendations

  • Recommendations

    Recommendations are advice to consumers and businesses that correspond to the rating system. Recommendations include: Best Choice, Good Alternative, Avoid, or Certified.

    • Best Choice: Buy first. Green-rated seafood is the Best Choice, meaning that it comes from sources that operate in a manner consistent with our guiding environmental principles and poses low environmental risk. This seafood is caught or farmed in ways that cause little or no harm to other wildlife or the environment and is well-regulated.
    • Good Alternative: Buy if a Best Choice option is not available. Yellow-rated seafood is a Good Alternative, meaning that one or more environmental issues need improvement or there’s uncertainty about the impacts on wildlife or the environment. Yellow-rated seafood poses a moderate environmental risk.
    • Avoid: Take a pass on this red-rated seafood for now. Red-rated seafood is caught or farmed in ways that have a high risk of causing significant harm to the environment. They do not align with our guiding environmental principles and are considered unsustainable due to either a critical conservation concern or multiple areas where improvement is needed. See how the Aquarium is collaborating with industry to improve red ratings.
    • Certified: Buy certified seafood listed on our website. Seafood Watch recognizes certifications that align with our standards.

  • Best Choice

    Buy first. Green-rated seafood is well managed and caught or farmed in an environmentally responsible manner. It poses a low environmental risk.

  • Good Alternative

    Buy if a green-rated option is not available. This seafood poses a moderate environmental risk.

  • Avoid

    Take a pass on this red rated seafood for now because it poses a high risk to the environment. It's overfished, lack strong management, or it caught or farmed in ways that harm other marine life or the environment.

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