The Editor’s Post: Blue economy tries to stay afloat as Americans snub UN conference

Last week, 60 heads of state descended on the French Côte d’Azur to try to save the blue world at the third UN Ocean Conference in Nice. Much of the focus was on the lack of money: the UN sustainable development goal 14, ‘life below water’, is the most underfunded SDG, with an estimated US$150bn lacking annually – despite the huge significance of the ocean for the planet, be it environmental, economic or social. As they tend to do when there isn’t enough public money available, policymakers looked to the private sector for help. 

There is no doubt that developing a sustainable ‘blue economy’ makes good business sense. Our reporting over the past few years has shown many examples of entrepreneurial solutions for the protection of the oceans: Blue Ventures, a nonprofit that supports coastal communities to adopt science-led sustainable fishing practices that benefit local people; the Sea Ranger Service, a Dutch social enterprise that trains and employs young people to restore ocean biodiversity; and our readers will also have come across many impact funds focused on the blue economy. 

Can policymakers enable those models to be replicated and scaled? The political declaration issued at the end of the conference puts forward ideas that the impact sector has long championed – like developing new financial instruments such as guarantees and catalytic capital. But the terms remain vague and there’s an unavoidable impression that commitments are toothless.

Sea of troubles

One of the reasons for that feeling was that the US was absent from the conference. While it comes as no surprise that the Trump administration didn’t bother to send anyone, American businesses and investors were remarkably missing from flagship private sector initiatives. Of a list of 55 companies (with a combined turnover of US$600bn) that signed an appeal for business to protect the oceans, only one was headquartered in the US. The #BackBlue coalition of investors committed to taking action for marine protection? None of them American. 

Seeing these long lists of businesses and investors committing to protecting a crucial planetary asset should be encouraging, but it is impossible to ignore the fact that – let’s face it – the most influential in the world are not taking part.

It’s something to bear in mind as we’re just over a week away from a major UN event: the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development in Seville, Spain. Highly anticipated by impact investors and social entrepreneurs worldwide, the conference could turn a corner on how we mobilise investment towards the SDGs – or end up making a U-turn on international sustainability commitments: as reports suggest the US is already attempting to torpedo the outcome, some might wish they weren’t there.

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