Skip to content

Sustainability Incubator

We work to overcome exploitation in global supply chains and on the world’s oceans with stewardship.

Founded in 2012 in Honolulu, we help businesses and governments to adapt and get ahead of patterns interfering with the durable production of goods and growth with dignity.

Our clients are diverse and include the ASEAN group of 11 nations, Humanity United and the Freedom Fund, Whole Foods, UN-FAO, the Hawaii Tuna Fleet, SYMPAC and Fong Hsiang Enterprises, International Organization for Migration, governments of Indonesia and the Philippines, Thai Union and many others.

The Sustainability Incubator has led the ocean food sector to recognize and correct fatal problems and to invest in stewardship.

We respond to crises in ungoverned spaces by investigating conditions to find the places and people most affected then ensuring an effective response, like the response by inspectors at ports in Indonesia and the Philippines trained to detect forced labour and to coordinate with hospitals, social workers, police and the labour department. Like the Crew Matters Committee for foreign fishers in the Hawaii tuna fleet.

We build new capacity for clients (methods, programs, curricula) to shift the business model towards stability, like the Labour Safe Screen for global supply chains and Live the Code for stronger working relationships between food producers and workers.

We find shared objectives for people with competing interests and different stakes and help businesses and governments to reset arrangements to match the local setting where impact lives, like assisting food companies to perform human rigths due diligence and fishery improvement projects, writing global guidelines for social responsibility for UN-FAO, and ASEAN develop regional policy for fishing labour.

Here is an example of our stewardship of seafood:

2011-14: Illegal fishing was flagged as a security threat but nobody knew the size or locus of the problem. We estimated its magnitude worldwide by tracing 30 top US seafood imports from 10 countries finding 20-32% average illegal content, 70% Thai tuna. Results: USA struck a Presidential Task Force and began monitoring imports, citing our work 44x.

2013-16: We developed detection methods with Thai Labour Rights Promotion Network we published in Science Advances and screened over 500 supply chains. Results: We introduced Human Rights Due Diligence to the seafood industry and won the Partnership for Freedom grand prize for Labor Safe Screen digital.

2015-2024: We built labour oversight by training (1) 80 seafood suppliers in 14 countries, (2) inspectors at 4 ports in Indonesia and the Philippines, and (3) 6 sectors of employers in Thailand and Indonesia with IOM. We drafted global guidelines for fisheries & aquaculture for UN-FAO. Results: The port protocols were mandated and within 2 months 13 young women were rescued and their traffickers apprehended at General Santos airport.

Pandemic Impacts: We researched workplace conditions in tuna and shrimp production and found the opposite of what markets say. A dbase of 3327 vessels fishing for ecolabeled tuna showed the MSC ecolabel does not know conditions or employers & most fishers were stranded at sea when it said forced labour risks were lower for certified seafood. Results: Findings in Nature were featured by the Financial Times and Re:Structure Lab. Data on post-pandemic wholesale prices, producer and workers’ earnings and costs showed rising unpaid work across the sector from blocked recovery, as supermarkets paid less for shrimp than it cost to farm, raised consumer prices. Results: Featured by Associated Press and all major US networks, newspapers across Asia, Wash. Post.

2025-26: We assisted ASEAN to develop a fishing labour policy and prepared practical workplace tools for workers and employers to use, like a Crew Rights Handbook and Vessel Owner Code of Conduct for the Hawaii Tuna Fleet in Bahasa, Tagalog, English, Vietnamese. We support 2 Fishery Improvement Projects. Results: Regional policy for SE Asian fishers. Stronger working relationships in Hawaii. Lower mortality for sea birds, turtles, sharks.

We invest in stewardship and collaborate with everyone to restore dignity in work, trade and policy.

About Us

The Sustainability Incubator is a project-based firm embedding stewardship in commodity industries, global supply chains, government policy and mandates. We develop research and tools like the Labour Safe Screen and Live the Code that are highly cited and widely used.

This is not a consultancy. Projects are localized to address real world problems in their setting in real time and accordingly are staffed by resident authorities recruited by the firm to ensure accurate, pragmatic results. To illustrate, our sector-wide field work and interviews with shrimp producers and workers were performed in Vietnam by Hanoi-based Center for Development and Integration, International Collaborating Centre for Aquaculture and Fisheries Sustainability with a rural development professor in southern Viet Nam and Mindanao-based Angel Ysik; in India by the Corporate Accountability Lab and in Indonesia by the Institute for Policy Research and Advocacy (ELSAM) in Jakarta, Akatiga Center for Social Analysis in Bandung, and the Miganani Research Institute in Yogyajakarta.

Leadership, practical methods and rigorous science are provided by founder and interdisplinary scientist Dr. Katrina Nakamura. Mentored by Dr.s Elinor Ostrom and Petra Clara Arck, Katrina holds a doctorate in business, stress, risk and impact. She is known for building governance and leadership on market measures for sustainability and human rights and is consulted frequently by the Financial Times (1,2), Associated Press (1,2), Washington Post, NPR, and seafood media.

Resources to Share

When More Means LessDownload

Laboring for lessDownload

Contact us at the.sustainability.incubator@gmail.com. Mahalo.