It cannot be said that aquaculture has ignored sustainable development (SD), judging by the number of standards, guides and indicators devoted to it, produced mainly under the aegis of international organizations such as FAO, The European Union and sorne NGOs. However, these continue to be perceived in large measure as constraints rather than as shared objectives by actors. Faced with this situation, which is not specific to aquaculture but on the contrary quite general regardless of sector, context or scale, the authors seek to propose a generic approach that through a collective process, i.e. a co-construction, promotes the implementation and appropriation of SD. What makes this approach original is not only the participatory nature of the construction, but also the regional nature of the approach which includes both aquaculture systems and their host area. It is based on a selection process that nests princip les, criteria and linking indicators to the actors' issues and representations, encourages their appropriation of both SD and the indicators produced. This approach is the fruit of fieldworks undertaken by a group of French researchers in partnership with teams of scientists and actors in France, in Europe and in Southern countries (Cameroon, Indonesia and Philippines). Aquaculture systems, representative of a broad range of farming systems and governance mechanisms, were studied. Designed in a form of an instruction manual that is as flexible as possible, the approach alternates various sequences in order to modulate the range and the involvement of stakeholders and to emphasise the collective learning process. In this paper, the authors first present the postulates which underlie the adaptive and participatory nature of the approach and then outline the linking phases. They conclude with sorne of the results obtained from the implementation of the method.