Remembering Fred Waelter, a valued STF colleague

We are very sad to share the news that Fred Waelter, who led the Seafood Task Force’s independent validation subgroup, has passed away, aged just 46.

Fred was a leading expert in the management of human rights due diligence in global supply chains and a greatly valued colleague at the STF since its earliest days almost a decade ago. 

He was a supply-chain social compliance professional with over 18 years of experience in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and social auditing and Principal Consultant of Sustainable Supply Chains at BSI.

As a social compliance auditor in China, Fred audited hundreds of factories, farms, and vessels in more than 30 countries around the world before moving to the UK where he managed UK and EU clients. He opened an office in Vietnam where he built a team of social compliance auditors from the ground-up.

His work has touched tens of thousands of workers throughout supply chains around the world, and he had a positive impact on hundreds of peers and clients whom he trained to be outstanding practitioners. He developed labour law databases and conducted investigations into forced labour and abuse of migrant workers.

Fred was a thought leader in the industry, who designed audit tools and protocols, and became the voice of the third-party auditor in the field. He was an accomplished linguist, fluent in in Mandarin, Cantonese, German, Vietnamese, and able to converse in Russian, Turkish, Japanese, and Thai. 

We will remember him as smart, passionate, funny, colleague and friend who maintained the highest ethical standards and expected the same from others. Fred will be greatly missed by everyone at the STF who worked with him, and we will soon be announcing an award in his honour. We want to pass on our sincere condolences to Fred’s family and to all who knew and loved him.