We work in global supply chains and on the world’s oceans with stewardship.
Founded in 2012 in Honolulu, we help businesses and governments to adapt to conditions that are changing or already have changed with scientific research and policy advice for sustainability with dignity.
New Methods, Evidence, Policy Advice, Curricula.
Our clients are diverse but share the objective of adding new oversight to the world’s oceans and inside supply chains. We helped by producing guidelines, coordination maps and curricula for ASEAN, UN-FAO, IOM and USDOL and rigorous independent research to learn real-time conditions (featured often in the news and published in Nature, Science Advances, Science, PloS One & Marine Policy).
Clients come to us for new capacity (methods, programs, policy, curricula) to shift the business model towards sustainability — not on paper but in production workplaces, procurement, and regional and problem-solving collaborations.
Our Labour Safe Screen for human rights due diligence in global supply chains was co-built by scientists and Thai social workers to find and assist trafficked fishers, for example, and it won the Partnership for Freedom grand prize for tech to eradicate modern slavery.
The way we work is different. 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. We investigate real-world conditions and the economics behind them to find the pathway that people will take for mutual gain and long-lasting results.
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
- Curricula for Port Inspectors to Detect Forced Labour & Respond:
- International Organization for Migration-Training-Manual-for-Fishing-and-Seafood-Enterprises_Thailand,
- IOM-Training-Manual-for-Fishing-and-Seafood-Enterprises-Indonesia,
- SAFE-Seas-Training-Manual-for-Port-Inspectors-Philippines.
- SAFE-Seas-Training-Manual-for-Port-Inspectors_Indonesia.
- Recent Publications:
- Is tuna ecolabeling causing fishers more harm than good? Nature
- A Practical Take on the Duty to Uphold Rights in the Seafood Workplace. Marine Policy.
- Seeing Slavery in Seafood Supply Chains. Science Advances.
- Committing to Socially Responsible Seafood, Science.
- Social equity is key to sustainable ocean governance. Nature.
- The role of human rights in implementing socially responsible seafood. PloS One.
- Committing to socially responsible seafood. Science.
- Estimates of illegal and unreported fish in seafood imports to the USA Marine Policy.
- Op/Ed: The numbers tell the story when it comes to forced labor in seafood. Seafood Source Media.
- Performance of regional fisheries management organizations: ecosystem‐based governance of bycatch and discards, Fish and Fisheries.
- Improvements to Rapfish: a rapid evaluation technique for fisheries integrating ecological and human dimensions. Journal of Fish Biology.
- Sea turtle bycatch to fish catch ratios for differentiating Hawaii longline-caught seafood products. Marine Policy.
Contact us at the.sustainability.incubator@gmail.com. Mahalo.