Shareholder pressure gets Coles to recognise salmon farming threat to the Maugean Skate
- Emily Ray
- 4 hours ago
- 3 min read
Big supermarket Coles Group Limited (ASX: COL) has publicly recognised the threat that salmon farming in Tasmania’s Macquarie Harbour poses to the endangered Maugean Skate after a year of sustained shareholder pressure by investment company SIX, Save the Skate campaign partners and shareholders including a number of active Ethinvest investors. The campaign effort now turns to Woolworths to pressure the second major supermarket to use its buying power to force unsustainable fish farming companies to change their ways.
In 2024 after a strong campaign to raise awareness of the impact of fish farming in Macquarie Harbour, nearly 40% of shareholders rallied against the Coles board to support a world-first resolution to prevent the extinction of the Maugean Skate.
After Coles failed to act with the urgency the Skate and shareholders demanded, the SIX campaign team together with Neighbours of Fish Farming, Environment Tasmania and businessman Geoff Cousins co-filed our resolutions to Coles for their 2025 Annual General Meeting (AGM). That first resolution called for Coles to identify and report on how the farmed seafood it sells impacts species under Australian's Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act in its Sustainability Report.
We did this to make them publicly disclose that they were harming the endangered Maugean Skate. Coles has started moving in the right direction. Through 2025, Coles have engaged with SIX and skate campaign partners.
In this year's Sustainability Report, Coles has:
Removed the "responsibly sourced" label from the home-brand Tasmania salmon
Undertaken an assessment of the threats of aquaculture on endangered species, like the Maugean Skate
Reviewed the EPBC Act's threatened fauna list
Publicly disclosed the results, naming impacted species and identified the risk Tasmanian farmed salmon poses to the Maugean Skate
We're encouraged to see this level of recognition and detail in Coles' 2025 Sustainability Report. Coles' actions so far have meant SIX and its campaign partners have withdrawn one of our resolutions.
This is a big step, and we commend Coles for taking action. This shows that shareholder resolutions are an effective tool to get companies listening and acting. Coles are listening and moving in the right direction on the Skate.
“The decision to withdraw one of our three resolutions is an act of good faith that the company will continue to do their due diligence,” said Lisa Litjens, Vice President at Neighbours of Fish Farming. “That they no longer label any Tasmanian farmed salmon as "responsibly sourced" should signal to consumers that there is a major problem with industrially farmed salmon. There is absolutely nothing responsible about causing the extinction of a species. We applaud Coles for publicly recognising this.”
“We, and over 70% of Tasmanians, expect a greater commitment to sustainability than this,” Litjens said. “But we acknowledge it's a step in the right direction... Product labelling plays an important role in consumer awareness. We will be holding Coles to their (published) commitment to transition away from sourcing farmed salmon from Macquarie Harbour at the upcoming AGM.”
So, what’s next? SIX and its campaign partners will still have a resolution on the table at the AGM to draw attention to the campaign before shareholders and the media. A second resolution calls on Coles to improve its seafood policy to match global standards. If the company did this, it would not be buying salmon from Macquarie Harbour, which is driving the Skate to potential extinction.
The Save the Skate campaign against Woolworths is also continuing with previous resolutions still standing as Woolworths management has not taken steps to act with the urgency the Skate and investors need.
Meanwhile, Environment Tasmania recently filed a complaint against Woolworths with the OECD over harms to the Skate ecosystem.
The Ethinvest team will be talking to our shareholder activists about using our voting power to support the campaign. Together, we are changing the way companies do business.
If you’d like to work with the Ethinvest team to use your shareholder power on campaigns that align with our ethical and impact investing criteria, please check out our Ethinvest Frequent Filer program and contact your adviser to let them know you are interested.
References & further reading:
Shareholder pressure gets Coles to recognise salmon farming threat to the Maugean Skate. (n.d.). https://www.six-invest.com.au/blog/campaign-milestone-coles-recognises-salmon-threat
Coles Group. (2025). Coles Group 2025 Sustainability Report. Retrieved October 10, 2025, from https://www.colesgroup.com.au/FormBuilder/_Resource/_module/ir5sKeTxxEOndzdh00hWJw/file/Sustainability_Report.pdf
SIX | Australian Share trading platform for ethical investing. (n.d.). https://www.six-invest.com.au/
NOFF. (n.d.). NOFF. https://www.noff.au/
