Global production network mapping for transforming socio-ecological systems

•The seafood industry plays an important role in fishery sustainability.•Mapping global production networks helped participants visualize their leverage in sustainability.•Co-designed research identified knowledge gaps in understanding global production networks.

In the seafood industry, global production networks (GPNs) are so complex that working with individual supply chains to improve sustainability is not enough to create systemic change. A system-level perspective can build upon supply-chain focused seafood certification and scorecard programs that currently dominate the sustainable seafood arena. We present a system-mapping method we piloted with seafood industry leaders, researchers, and experts, designed to visualize individual supply chains in a wider context and generate new ways of looking at old fishery sustainability problems. With simplified schematics of the GPNs of two fisheries, where pressure to transform came from the harvester and the buyer sides, respectively, we show how system maps helped seafood industry participants to locate major gaps in their understanding of the GPN, and to appreciate the extent of their leverage to address persistent problems.