This white paper was commissioned by the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) as part of the Integration of seafood certification and jurisdictional assurance models project which ran between July 2019 - June 2022, supported by the ISEAL Innovations Fund and State Secretariat for Economic Affairs SECO.

The paper is based on a literature review and cases studies illustrating different experiences with improvement projects in and beyond aquaculture. Aquaculture improvement projects (AIPs) have recently emerged as a new form of market-based and non-state governance in the aquaculture sector. It explores:

• the main characteristics of AIPs and introduces the concept of “incentives”.
• different incentives for engaging producers and other actors in improved production practices through certification or participation in AIPs.
• how claims can be attached to products coming from AIPs
• how different characteristics of AIPs create diverse incentives for different actors and makes suggestions about how to unlock incentives for actors to encourage more broad-based participation.