Sarah Moore is a Master of Business Administration student with a concentration in Sustainability at Chatham University. She joined the Chatham community in the fall of 2015, and currently works as a Graduate Assistant in Chatham’s Business and Entrepreneurship Department. As an undergraduate student, Sarah obtained her Bachelor of Science degree from The Ohio State University in Environment, Economy, Development and Sustainability (EEDS).
Sarah recently returned from Honolulu, Hawaiʻi, where she was hired as a Business Associate for Conservation International (CI). Her primary project was to assist in the execution of Hawaiʻi Seafood Month, a statewide campaign highlighting the collective efforts of the commercial fishing sector and local businesses to promote sustainable, local seafood through the month of October. Over 50 restaurants and retailers signed onto this campaign, organized by Conservation International Hawaiʻi in partnership with Ulupono Initiative and the Hawaiʻi Seafood Council.
Choosing local food (especially seafood) would appear to be an intuitive choice for an island in the Pacific Ocean, but Hawaiʻi’s food system is surprisingly reliant on imports: “80% to 90% of food consumed in Hawai‘i is imported, including 63% of all commercially sold seafood. This is costly in both environmental and monetary terms. As seafood consumption increases and climate change impacts begin to be felt, Hawaiʻi’s reliance on expensive imports will increase unless there is a shift to local, sustainable food production,” according to scientists at Conservation International. The Hawaiʻi Seafood Month campaign is an effort to educate consumers on the importance of choosing local seafood, and highlight the chefs and fishermen who provide customers with this choice.
One of the campaign’s most noteworthy features was its use of an innovative online platform called ThisFish. This platform allows consumers to trace their seafood’s journey from ocean to plate. When dining at participating restaurants, customers are presented with a QR code that can be scanned with a smartphone. Consumers are then traced back to the origins of their seafood dish including the name and picture of the fisherman, his or her vessel, the method of catch, catch location, and the date of catch. This application was crucial to bringing more awareness of the “hook to plate” seafood journey to consumers.
Highlights of the campaign, in Sarah’s opinion, were the kickoff events held by restaurants on each island. These events gathered together the movers and shakers of Hawaiʻi’s seafood industry. Kickoff events served tastings of local seafood prepared by local chefs, and provided a valuable networking opportunity with small-boat fishers, top chefs, seafood distributors, organizations such as the Hawaiʻi Seafood Council, and special guests like state politicians and even the cast of the TV show Hawaii 5-0!
“For many chefs and fishermen, this was the first opportunity they had to meet and converse with one another. Their jobs are so dependent on each another, but there can be such a disconnect among producers, distributors and consumers in the food supply chain. It was an incredible experience to hear them exchange stories and express gratitude for each other,” Sarah notes.
Sarah’s primary duties involved contacting restaurants and chefs to garner interest in the campaign, marketing campaign objectives through website development and social media, assisting in the planning of kickoff events, and inputting fish data into ThisFish. This assignment with Conservation International has provided Sarah valuable experience with sustainable supply chain management on a local scale as well as unique insight into the Hawaiian culture. For more information on the campaign, check out features on the Hawaiʻi Seafood Month campaign from Honolulu Magazine and Conservation International’s Human Nature blog.
Sarah’s experience is one of many practical applications of Chatham University’s Sustainability concentration in the MBA program. This concentration provides students with an application-focused education that sets a solid foundation in business leadership while leveraging Chatham University’s renowned educational strengths in sustainability and environmentalism. With this focus, the Sustainability track prepares graduates to understand factors, shape practices, and seize strategic sustainable business opportunities for the organizations they serve.
