U.S. Secretary’s Award for Corporate Excellence
We are incredibly honored to receive the U.S. Secretary of State’s 2021 Award for Corporate Excellence (ACE) in the Climate Innovation category.
We share this award five other companies including Patagonia Argentina, 3M Singapore, Mastercard India, Purnaa (Nepal), and Zipline (Ghana).
What is the ACE Award?
The Secretary’s Award for Corporate Excellence (ACE) recognizes and honors U.S. companies that best represent American values and international best practices in their operations overseas. Chiefs of Mission nominated the 2021 ACE companies, and a selection committee that included EB, OES, S/GWI, and SPEC selected the winners. This year’s ACE will honor U.S. companies whose overseas efforts align with key Biden-Harris Administration priorities: Economic Inclusion, Health Security, and Climate Innovation.
Why did Australis win this award?
The U.S. Mission Vietnam’s Chargé d’Affaires, Marie C. Damour, gave this introduction:
The combination of ocean overfishing and climate change pose accelerating risks to our global food supply and to marine economies around the world. Through its innovative approach to fish farming and processing, Australis has developed a new model for large scale ocean aquaculture in the marine tropics that creates economic benefits for workers and coastal communities, enhances global food security, protects wild fisheries, and builds climate resilience.
Australis has followed a science-based approach to ocean aquaculture that produces clean, traceable, and healthy fish without reliance on antibiotics or chemicals. The company has achieved this through the development of world class husbandry techniques, specialized fish vaccines and feed formulations, and the application of technology to scale its operations in a highly sustainable manner.
Australis has relied on local workers at all levels to support its growth, expanding economic opportunities in the beautiful coastal region of Vietnam through its competitive wages, gender equity, and safe working conditions.
Earlier this year, the company achieved fair trade certification, Asia’s first and only aquaculture fin fish producer to do so. To complement its sustainable fish production, Australis is also tackling climate change through greener grazing, an ambitious one-of-a-kind initiative to cultivate a novel seaweed species with the potential to virtually eliminate enteric methane emissions from livestock when included in their diet. Methane released from livestock is responsible for almost four and a half gigatons of CO2 equivalent every year. Therefore, if successful, greener grazing could dramatically reduce methane emissions from the world’s two billion cattle – one of the single most effective strategies to reduce global warming in the near term and support COP26 goals to limit global warming to one and a half degrees Celsius.
Learn More
Secretary of State’s Award for Corporate Excellence
Australis achieves Fair Trade Certification
Greener Grazing