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January 2nd 2023

Salmon farming in Scotland has achieved its best environmental performance, according to statistics collected for SEPA's Compliance Assessment Scheme.

Figures recently collated for 2018 and published today (19.02.20) showed 87 per cent of farms achieving "excellent" or "good" status.

The Compliance Assessment Scheme (CAS) is used by the environmental regulator to monitor performance across a range of industries and sectors.

The results have been welcomed by Salmon Scotland as "demonstrating the sector's commitment to robust environmental standards."

The compliance figures for all sectors are being published by SEPA today.

Salmon Scotland is publishing the detailed figures for the salmon sector to highlight the good progress being made.

SEPA assessed the performance of 296 farms in 2018 which showed a 33 per cent increase in the number of farms achieving an "excellent" rating and a 12 per cent increase in the number of farms achieving "good" compared to 2017.

The number of sites rated "poor" dropped by 32 per cent to 38 farms.

Julie Hesketh-Laird, chief executive of Salmon Scotland, said: "These statistics are very good news for Scottish salmon farming. They represent the significant and ongoing effort and investment to improve environmental performance and I'm delighted that this continued focus on environmental stewardship is delivering positive results.

"As a sector, we fully recognise that a strong environmental performance is key to successful salmon farming and we want to demonstrate publicly our commitment to responsible performance. These results are an excellent endorsement of that effort and success.

"Companies are keen to build on this positive trend."