Governance

Governance

Woolworths is committed to integrity in business and to ensuring our policies and practices meet the highest levels of disclosure and compliance.

Corporate governance

Under the direction of our experienced board, Woolworths has created a comprehensive corporate governance framework which is particularly strong in the critical areas of compliance and financial reporting.

Woolworths follows the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) Corporate Governance Council's Corporate Governance Principles and Recommendations (second edition). Our directors are committed to the ethical pursuit of shareholders' best interests.

The following documents outline our governance framework and are available at www.woolworthslimited.com.au:

For more information refer to the Corporate Governance Statement in our 2009 Annual Report.

Directors

The board of directors is accountable to shareholders for the company's performance and its responsibilities include Woolworths' corporate governance practices. The board's principal objective is to maintain and increase shareholder value while ensuring Woolworths' overall activities are properly managed.

The board views its ongoing support of the highest standards of corporate governance as fundamental to its commitment to business integrity and professionalism in all its activities. It regularly reviews the practices and standards governing its composition, independence and effectiveness, and the accountability and compensation of its directors and senior executives.

For more information please refer to the Annual Report 2009 which is available at www.woolworthslimited.com.au.

Board committees

The board has established a number of committees to support it in matters that require more intensive review. These are the:

More information on board committees, their roles and responsibilities can be found in the Annual Report 2009 which is available at www.woolworthslimited.com.au.

Privacy policy

Woolworths complies with the National Privacy Principles for the Fair Handling of Personal Information that sets standards for collection, use and disclosure, access, storage and destruction of personal information that we collect as part of our business operations. We also have a general privacy policy and a number of product-specific privacy policies covering various aspects of our business. If you would like a copy of the Woolworths privacy policy please write to
Privacy Officer
Woolworths Limited
Mail Point N2:B4
1 Woolworths Way
Bella Vista NSW 2153.
Our privacy policy is available on all our websites.

In 2009, external consultants were appointed to review our privacy practice and procedures across most business divisions. The review is underway and it forms part of our standard business practice seeking continual improvement for everything we do.

Political donations

Woolworths aims to keep governments and other important stakeholders informed about its activities. Our standard policy is not to make outright political donations. If cash donations are made we disclose the amount and the recipient as per the requirements of the Australian Electoral Commission.

All political contributions are transparent, are made in the spirit of supporting the democratic process on a bipartisan basis and strictly adhere to all relevant laws and regulations.

In 2009, we contributed $24,200 to Australian Labor Party (ALP), $17,450 to Coalition (National Party and Liberal Party) in NSW and $28,400 (includes part cash donation) to Australian Labor Party (ALP) and $20,000 to Liberal National Party (LNP) in QLD.

RESPONSIBLE RETAILING

Responsible food retailing
WOOLWORTHS ALCOHOL RANGING CHARTER
Principle 1The product should not have the potential to appeal to minors
Principle 2The product should not have an appearance that could potentially lead to confusion with confectionery or soft drinks.
Principle 3 The product should not have an appearance which may lead to confusion about its alcoholic nature or strength.
Principle 4The products should not draw any association with drug culture, narcotics or other illicit drugs or drug paraphernalia.
Principle 5 The product should not encourage illegal or immoderate consumption such as binge drinking, drunkenness or drink-driving.
Principle 6The product should not suggest any association with dangerous, violent, aggressive or antisocial behaviour.
Principle 7 The product should not suggest that consumption can lead to social, sporting or sexual success.
Principle 8The product should not feature imagery or language that could be deemed offensive on cultural, religious, ethnic or gender grounds.
Principle 9 The product should not suggest that any physical or mental health benefit can be obtained by consumption.
Principle 10Ready to drink (RTD) products containing more than two standard drinks per single serve container will not be ranged by WLG.

Our wide-ranging commitment to responsible food retailing is evidenced in a variety of ways, from our competitive pricing and fresh food offer to the confectionery-free checkouts in all our supermarkets for parents who may be shopping with their children. New signage, introduced about 18 months ago to support the launch of the Fresh Food Kids campaign, is aimed at making these checkouts more obvious in the stores and easier to identify.

Selling alcohol responsibly

The sale and consumption of alcoholic beverages bring with it considerable responsibilities. Many of these obligations are defined by legislation that seeks to protect individuals and society from harm caused by excessive alcohol consumption.

Alcohol consumption is ultimately an issue of individual responsibility. However, as a responsible retailer of alcoholic beverages, we go beyond regulatory compliance and abide by a strict buying charter that governs all aspects of our liquor operations.

Any alcoholic or alcohol branded product (such as branded chocolate, chips or soft drinks) submitted for potential sale by any buyer within the Woolworths Liquor Group must first be benchmarked against a checklist. Any product failing to meet these guidelines will not be considered for ranging. The charter includes ten principles that aim to avoid the sale of any products that appeal to minors, encourage inappropriate drinking practices or make inappropriate associations.

These practices are intended to send a strong message to the community and manufacturers that products that target minors and encourage irresponsible drinking are not welcome in our stores.

Preventing sale of alcohol to underage customers and to people who are supplying them is one of the challenges facing our 8,000 staff working in licensed premises.

To help our staff make the right decisions we have implemented our ID25 policy, which requires employees to ask for identification when customers appear to be aged 25 or younger. This reduces the guesswork and potential stress for staff while helping to ensure we only sell to customers of legal age. This policy has been incorporated into our Responsible Service of Alcohol training for all staff. Prominent in-store signage supports the program. We have recently initiated another point of sale campaign, 'Don't buy it for them,' the purpose of which is to raise community awareness of the danger of secondary supply of alcohol to minors.(1)

Woolworths has always been a willing and conscientious participant in efforts by state and territory police, local councils and community groups to tackle problem drinking. We have voluntarily introduced a range of measures (over and above our licence requirements) to assist local communities to better manage alcohol related issues. These have included removing 'long-neck' beer, wine casks and fortified wines from our range in those areas in which these products are prone to abuse; we have also voluntarily reduced trading hours in some areas.

Woolworths Liquor Group has introduced an intranet-based Accord management system to manage our participation in local community liquor accords around the country.

(1) The Australian Secondary Students use of alcohol survey (2006) identifies parents, older friends and siblings as the source of alcohol purchased for 84% of 12-17 year olds.

Responsible service of gaming

The ALH Group is committed to providing responsible gaming in our venues. We acknowledge that problem gambling is a serious community issue and that a small proportion of customers are harmed by their gambling activities.

We believe that the industry, government, community and individuals have a shared responsibility for the promotion, development and practice of responsible gambling.

ALH complies with all applicable responsible gambling legislative requirements in each state and participates in many state and local government gambling working groups to assist in identifying and developing appropriate responsible gambling initiatives.

All ALH gaming staff are trained in the responsible service of gambling and all frontline managers and staff are trained in the responsible service of alcohol. It is general ALH practice not to promote any practice which may encourage rapid or excessive consumption of alcohol such as 'happy hours'.

The ALH Group has engaged David Schwarz, a well-known former AFL footballer and media identity, as its responsible gambling ambassador to provide employee education and customer awareness about the importance of 'being honest with yourself about your gambling'. David has completed an accredited responsible service of gambling course. This program is now in its third year of supporting our efforts in responsible service of gaming.

Key elements of the program include:

David's role includes being available for our staff to discuss gambling problems they or their families and friends may be experiencing.

PRODUCT RESPONSIBILITY FOR PRIVATE LABEL

Supermarkets - food and groceries

Our most recognised supermarket Private Label brands are Homebrand, Select and Essentials.

Our Homebrand range has been developed over 20 years and encompasses around 800 products. This value range provides quality products within the budget price category. Homebrand is Australia's largest selling single brand of groceries.

The Woolworths Select range was introduced in 2005 to provide customers with more than 1,200 premium Private Label products.

Our customers have responded enthusiastically to the quality and value that Woolworths Select offers, with past research indicating 75% of customers who have purchased a Woolworths Select product have become repeat buyers.

As health and nutrition are becoming increasingly important concerns for many customers, all products in the Woolworths Naytura range have been carefully selected to help contribute to a healthy diet. Each product is selected to provide the best taste while reducing salt, sugar, fat and additives. The Naytura range includes nuts, dried fruits, cereals, spreads and biscuits. We are continually looking to expand the range to provide our customers with better food options.

Woolworths Organics is a range of organically certified fresh foods and grocery products for customers who prefer organic produce. The range includes fresh fruit and vegetables, poultry, tinned products, milk and cheese. We are continually looking to expand this range in line with growing demand.

BIG W

BIG W has 54 exclusive brands across all general merchandise categories. There are 28 throughout the softgoods categories like Dymples in the baby categories, Pink Sugar and Bed Bugs in children's wear and House and Home in Manchester and Tweed River in menswear. Similarly there are 26 exclusive brands in hardgoods like Abode in electrical appliances, AWA in home entertainment, Patio by Jamie Durie in outdoor leisure, Cocoa Belgian in confectionery, Scribblers and Ditto in stationery, Woofbix and Moggybix in petcare.

Dick Smith

Dick Smith has an extensive range of more than 1,000 Private Label products ranging from simple accessories to sophisticated, multi-function entertainment systems. Our main Private Label brand names are DSE, Digitor, Tandy, Radioshack, Distinct and Dick Smith. The Dick Smith brand has been highly recognized for more than 40 years. Its product development and packaging designs continue to evolve to ensure the products and packaging are in line with today's customer needs.

Woolworths Liquor Group

Our Liquor Group retails a range of beer, wine and spirits products. This offering has been made possible by the partnerships developed with leading vineyards, distillers and breweries from Australia and around the world. Examples of our Private Label brands here are Cow Bombie, Dimensions, Sonata, Golden Oak, Craftsman and Baily & Baily.

QUALITY ASSURANCE, PRODUCT INFORMATION AND LABELLING

Supermarkets

Our quality assurance (QA) team is made up of 24 and four qualified technical staff in Australia and New Zealand respectively. They include food technologists, nutritionists, chemists and the QA Laboratory team located in state-of-the-art laboratory facilities at Norwest.

The QA team is responsible for ensuring all products sold in our Fresh Food Departments and under our Private Label brands are safe and of the highest quality and that all claims made on products are validated and comply with relevant regulations.

All suppliers of fresh food products and some general merchandise products in Australia must be certified to the Woolworths Quality Assurance (WQA) standard. Currently more than 2,300 suppliers are independently audited biannually to demonstrate compliance to the WQA Standard. The WQA program is also audited globally to ensure compliance of suppliers.

WQA certification is underway for over 300 suppliers to our New Zealand supermarkets who supply Private Label and Fresh Food products. The certification of all these suppliers is on track for completion by October 2009.

The WQA Standard is updated annually in line with global food safety and retailer standards. The most recent update was completed in June 2009 to include our revised Ethical Sourcing Policy and audit requirements.

We are committed to clear labelling of ingredients, nutritional content and country of origin. Our team of inhouse food scientists and nutritionists reviews every specification and ingredient list to ensure that each product meets our high standards. We also aim to minimise the use of artificial colourings, additives and preservatives. Our Private Label brands meet regulatory standards and provide as much information as possible. This includes listing nutrients such as trans-fat content.

To help customers make healthier choices we commenced rolling out the Australian Food and Grocery Council (AFGC) % Daily Intake (DI) labelling on all Private Label products from August 2008. Currently we have placed % DI thumbnails on 566 Private Label food products across both WOW Select and Homebrand. We work actively with the AFGC to ensure that we continue to educate consumers on the use of % DI labelling on food.

Woolworths is a member of the Australian Food and Grocery Council Allergen Bureau, an industry initiative to improve allergen management within food manufacturing and ensure that allergen statements made on products are clear and concise for the consumer.

The Allergen Bureau has developed a tool, VITAL, which Woolworths has mandated for all Private Label suppliers to use prior to providing information for allergen labelling of packaged products. To this end Woolworths has committed to provide allergen advice on packaging in the form of a 'one-stop spot' which clearly advises what allergen the product may contain. Please refer to the Allergen Bureau for further detail.

BIG W and General Merchandise

All exclusive and Private Label products are subject to relevant elements of our quality assurance program which includes:

Routine checks conducted at the Distribution Centres and cyclical audits at stores form key elements of our quality assurance program.

Packaging and labelling for exclusive brands are assessed at various stages of product development to ensure compliance with regulatory requirements. Products are assessed to ensure all required warnings, age grade recommendations, measurements, labels, care instructions and country of origin claims are correct.

Woolworths Limited Product Category Standards were developed during the year and are being rolled out progressively to exclusive and Private Label vendors.

Dick Smith

Dick Smith manages product compliance with Australian and international standards covering a broad range of criteria including electrical safety, human electromagnetic exposure, toy safety, radiocommunications and telecommunications compatibility and energy efficiency.

Our engineering staff assess product safety impact prior to ranging products and monitor ongoing compliance using a combination of independent factory and incoming goods inspections.

Woolworths Liquor Group

Woolworths Liquor Group is currently establishing its quality assurance process in line with our Woolworths Quality Assurance (WQA) standard. However, our Private Label brands in liquor are predominantly produced by reputable and well-known brand owners retailing products under their own brands with established quality assurance processes.

Petrol

Fuel quality is subject to the Australian Government's Fuel Quality Standards Act 2000. This Act covers all fuel types including all gasoline, diesel and LPG. Refiners are required to manufacture fuel to comply with this Act, and all fuel is tested prior to release against the requirements under it. Imported fuel is also subject to the standards imposed under the Act. Woolworths requires its fuel suppliers to complete testing and to furnish Woolworths with certificates of quality, certifying that fuel supplied to us complies.

GREEN MARKETING AND OUR PRIVATE LABEL BRANDS

The retail market is becoming increasingly saturated with products making environmental claims. Unfortunately some claims can be misleading if they are not supported by evidence or not well explained. This practice of 'greenwash' has led to a great deal of consumer confusion when making decisions about buying environmentally friendly products.

With more and more suppliers wanting to put environmental claims on their products it is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish between environmental certification standards, particularly when dealing with international suppliers. There is a demonstrated need for retailers, including Woolworths, to improve environmental labelling and verification processes to build customer trust and make it easier for customers to choose legitimately sustainable products.

Woolworths has a group-wide Environmental Claims Policy to help our buying, advertising and marketing staff ensure that the environmental claims made on Woolworths Private Label brands and in our catalogues have been properly verified and described in a way that does not mislead our customers or the general public. The policy was developed with reference to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) guidelines on green marketing and New Zealand Commerce Commission.

A labelling audit was conducted in 2009 on all Private Label packaging, assessing compliance with the ISO 14021 standard for environmental labelling. From 694 Private Label products audited, 331 non-conformances were identified. Of these 21 were categorised as high, 50 medium and 260 as low priority.

Most of the high and medium issues related to the use of the Plastics Identification Code (PIC) or the recycling logo on flexible plastic packaging, which cannot be recycled in kerbside recycling systems. Outstanding actions will be addressed through scheduled product reviews, design changes and tenders.

PRODUCT RECALLS

Supermarkets

In financial year 2009, from more than 2,000 Private Label products we only had one product recall - for Homebrand garlic bread which was part of a much larger recall of all garlic bread lines from the same manufacturer.

BIG W

BIG W has an annual average product count of 202,399. BIG W had 12 Private Label product recalls in financial year 2009.

Dick Smith

Dick Smith had no Private Label product recalls in financial year 2009.

Woolworths Liquor Group

Woolworths Liquor Group had no Private Label product recalls in financial year 2009.

Petrol

There were no incidents of product non-compliance with regard to fuel.

RESPONSIBLE SOURCING

Ethical sourcing

In December 2008 we launched our Ethical Sourcing Policy. Our policy is based on globally recognized standards - the ETI (Ethical Trade Initiative) and ILO (International Labour Organisation) conventions. Both standards are based on the principles of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Woolworths became a signatory to the UN Global Compact in May 2009.

The objectives of the Ethical Sourcing Policy are to ensure that we:

The policy includes four key risk areas: bribery and corruption, labour rights, working conditions and environmental compliance. The policy is available on our website www.wowlink.com.au.

All Woolworths Limited suppliers are expected to comply with requirements of our policy, which is complemented by a compliance audit program for predominantly suppliers of our own branded products.

Our aim is to audit all suppliers of our own brands within a two-year timeframe. Given the volume of supplier audits to be conducted, the business has taken a risk assessment type approach to prioritise how we go about whom to audit first. Suppliers have been assessed in terms of brand, product category and country of origin.

Audits are conducted by experienced third-party certification bodies. All audit criteria have been assessed according to the level of risk and categorised as critical and non-critical non-conformances. Non-critical is further categorised as 'high' or 'low' in severity.

Areas of significant risk deemed to be critical include specific criteria relating to child labour, imprisoned or bonded labour, health and safety, or bribery and corruption. Breach of any specific critical criterion will result in a request for immediate resolution or corrective action by the supplier. Woolworths is notified of any critical findings within 24 hours of the audit, often while the auditor is still on site.

Suppliers are categorised as 'approved', 'conditionally approved' or 'at risk' depending on the audit outcome and compliance with policy requirements. Our approach is to work with suppliers to help improve their labour and environmental practices no matter which category they are in. This is particularly important in cases of child labour, where any threat of contract termination would typically result in the factory terminating the child worker's employment. An important consideration here is the detrimental consequences this would be likely to have on the child and the family members who may depend on him or her - including loss of income and the hunger, homelessness and general deprivation and poverty that would inevitably follow.

Results thus far have shown the most common area of non-conformance is related to working hours and living wages, an issue which is broadly recognised and acknowledged and more specific throughout various areas of China. Employees are generally working more normal or overtime hours compared with local requirements - for example, more than seven days consecutively without time off, or receiving wages which are not in line with local award requirements for social insurances or overtime awards.

Some issues are bigger than Woolworths, and we cannot fix these problems alone despite our best efforts. For this we look beyond our own business to seek assistance and advice about issues that are systemic and require a global approach to bring about change and improvement.

Woolworths is an active member of the Global Social Compliance Program (www.gscpnet.com), a multi-stakeholder program aimed at delivering a shared, consistent approach for continuously improving working and environmental conditions across all categories and sectors.

ANIMAL WELFARE

As communities become more affluent and better educated, they demand more information about how their food is produced, transported and processed, and how animals are managed through the production chain.

The consumer interest in animal welfare has been increasing over the past few years. We have seen this reflected in our sales of, particularly, free-range eggs and chicken meat. We have responded accordingly by making more choices available to our customers.

Our Select branded eggs currently comprise free-range, barn-laid and caged eggs. As part of our commitment we will discontinue selling caged eggs under our Select brand at the end of 2009.

In 2009, we made a decision to change egg shelf layouts in all our stores to reflect segregation by farming type such as caged, free-range and barn-laid. This change is supported by point of sale material such as floor media clearly identifying the range available to customers. The new shelf layouts were released to all stores nationally in August 2009.

We stock Bred Free Otway Pork in 23 stores in Victoria and will be extending the distribution to more stores. We will continue to review the supply base to explore further opportunities to make additional free-range pork products available to customers over coming years.

However, we are mindful of the magnitude of change and investment such developments may represent for our suppliers. We have a responsibility to suppliers and customers to introduce any fundamental change such as this in a responsible manner so suppliers have the capacity to invest in change and can provide our customers with affordable product.

We are currently working on specifying animal welfare compliance criteria for our suppliers for all relevant product categories. We aim to publish these compliance criteria by early 2010. These compliance criteria will underpin our policy and form part of our product category standards and their implementation will be monitored through our existing Woolworths Quality Assurance Program.

We thank all stakeholders for helping us better understand all concerns and views. They include:

FAIR TRADE

Our supermarkets range a number of fairtrade certified products in response to their customers' requests. Some fairtrade certified brands that we retail are:

GENETICALLY MODIFIED (GM) FOODS

Woolworths is committed to food safety, quality and truth in advertising and labelling its products and services. We comply with all relevant national, state and territory food standards.

Our standard practice is to avoid GM material in our Private Label food range. In 2009, we had no Private Label food product requiring GM ingredients labelling.

Our suppliers are required to declare any GM ingredients at product development stage in the Private Label Product Specification in the GMO Declaration section. If GM ingredients are declared, we work with our suppliers in an effort to replace the GM ingredient with a non-GM alternative before finalizing the product specification and the supply contract. The suppliers are contractually bound to adhere to the agreed product specification at all times and cannot change any ingredients without our consent.

We are committed to transparency and giving our customers accurate information about our products. We comply with the Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) prescribed mandatory labelling requirements for GM foods. FSANZ is the statutory agency that develops the food standards.

We cannot guarantee that the stock feed in meat or dairy products supply chain is non-GM. However, scientific evidence shows that GM material in stock feed is not transferred to milk, meat or other dairy products.

We do not use the term 'GM-free' or 'Genetically Engineered-free' in any labeling or claims. The use of the term 'free' is required, by Fair Trading Legislation, to mean the substance is not present in the product without a trace at any time. 'Free' claims can be misleading for customers as it is possible for trace levels of GM material to be present unintentionally.

SUSTAINABLE SOURCING

Palm oil

The growing demand for palm oil is putting added pressure on rainforest areas in Southeast Asia, West Africa and South America. The loss of forest in Indonesia is threatening the survival of many native species and the draining of peatlands is contributing to climate change. There are also nutritional concerns and benefits in using palm oil - it contains about 50% saturated fats but has no trans fats.

Woolworths policy for the past two years has been to reduce the use of palm oil in Select food products where an alternative oil can be used\ without compromising the product quality and increasing the trans-fat content.

Replacing palm oil (palm stearin) in bakery goods has proved difficult. The key to maintaining functionality in baking fats is to retain the 'hardness' of the fat. Typically these properties come with fats high in saturated and trans fats. If nutrition and health is considered, then the goal of any viable replacement in baking should be to reduce these cholesterol-raising fats and replace with unsaturated fats. At present the only practical alternatives that offer desirable baking characteristics (crisp and firm) are butter and hydrogenated fats, both of which contain trans fat, so neither can be recommended alternatives to palm stearin.

For more details on palm oil, fats and health go to www.woolworthslimited.com.au.

In 2009, no new Select branded food products were launched containing palm oil. Our palm oil replacement policy upheld by the Select brand has seen 40 food products that would otherwise have contained palm oil sell over 1.1 million units. In our bakery area we have removed palm oil from over 35 lines which would have traditionally used palm oil which sold 6.7 million units.

These products may still have traces of palm oil derivatives which may exist in additives such as emulsifiers and flavour bases as a very small percentage. These are not easily identifiable as there are no currently prescribed mandatory labelling requirements for palm oil.

Our Private Label team implements our palm oil requirement through the product development process working with our suppliers. Our position is clearly communicated to them through our product development brief which forms part of the trade agreement with Private Label suppliers. The ongoing monitoring forms part of our quality assurance system. Biannual audits of Private Label suppliers ensure adherence to our product specifications.

We are reviewing our position on the use of palm oil with the aim of achieving a balanced outcome in addressing health, nutrition and environmental concerns as well as maintaining product quality and value for customers.

Timber and paper goods

A supply tender was advertised for our Select tissue range in March 2009 and closed on 6 May 2009. Tender assessment is currently underway and we expect to have a supply contract in place by the end of 2009.

The supply tender included specific sustainability requirements as well as our standard requirements in line with our Ethical Sourcing Policy.

We specified that the successful supplier must be able to demonstrate that fibre for production of Select tissue products is purchased only from legal, well-managed sources and holds all relevant certifications for either Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) or Program for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC). The alternative for PEFC certification was to accommodate local suppliers as no local tissue suppliers have FSC certifications currently.

In 2009, we also issued a supply tender for our A4 copy paper for internal use. This tender also specified sustainability criteria with regards to the paper source. The tender is expected to be completed by the end of 2009.

Tenderers were required to provide copies of all valid and current certificates related to their FSC or PEFC certification and specify country of origin, region/province and tree species of the wood fibre to be used in manufacturing of the Select tissue products. The successful supplier will be required to provide annual compliance reports as well as access to the Woolworths Limited audit team for the purpose of third party verification of compliance with our sustainability criteria.

BIG W retails FSC certified outdoor furniture brand "Patio".

Fish and seafood

We have specific requirements for trade partners who supply seafood products to our supermarkets. These requirements support the Woolworths Quality Assurance (WQA) Standard. All direct suppliers of seafood, both local and international, are required to become certified to the Woolworths Quality Assurance Standard (WQA). The scope of the standard covers aquaculture, catch, harvest, procurement of raw and packaging materials, processing, packaging and distribution through to supply to Woolworths Distribution Centres and supermarkets.

All our trade partners as part of our trading terms are required to maintain compliance to all Government regulatory requirements related to the seafood industry.

We require that all seafood products comply with:

We have been working with the Marine Stewardship Council to help develop a better understanding of the issues relating to sustainable seafood, fishing practices and chain of custody certification.