Sustainable Ocean Alliance
Examining the Value Proposition of Marine and Coastal Sustainability Solutions
By: Daniela V. Fernandez, Founder and CEO, Sustainable Ocean Alliance
The sustainable blue economy holds great promise for impact investors. The ocean investment landscape is expanding, with increasing avenues to explore and gaps to close. Yet somehow, “Life Underwater” remains the most underfunded UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG14).
One solution is to shift the mindset of investors to begin viewing marine and coastal ecosystems as an asset class. After all, the World Bank places the annual value of Blue Carbon ecosystems at USD $190 Billion per year for their carbon sequestration.
While nature’s value is inherent, it is certainly beneficial to calculate the sum of its worth. Very recently, comprehensive studies have begun to quantify the price point of marine and coastal ecosystems, conclusively proving this undeniable asset class is worth exploring in depth.
Nature as an Asset Class
Multiple ecosystems rise to the top of the pool of potential investments based on calculated worth: salt marshes, seagrass meadows, coral reefs, mangrove forests, and kelp forests.
One study found salt marshes provide US $695 Thousand of value per square mile during storms by absorbing up to 1.5 million gallons of flood water, thus decreasing property damage. They also reduce erosion, stabilize shorelines, support wildlife for fishing and birding, and more.
Amazingly, seagrass meadows cover only 0.1% of the ocean bed but store up to 18 percent of all carbon in the ocean. Trapping two times as much carbon as tropical forests on land, Caribbean seagrass beds (which extend known seagrass worldwide by 41%) are worth US $255 Billion per year.
While coral reefs are not considered a carbon sink, they provide an estimated US $375 Billion per year worldwide in goods and services. They provide diverse value, from driving tourism revenue for destinations to meeting global protein demand (as home to 25 percent of marine life), providing a source of new medicine, and protecting coastlines from storms and erosion.
As for mangrove forests, they trap up to four times as much carbon as trees and serve as a first line of defense against coastal flooding.From an economic standpoint, they “prevent more than US$65 Billion in property damages and reduce flood risk to some 15 million people.”Last but not least, a 2023 study estimated that global kelp forests contribute US $562 Billion per year to the global economy. For context, this is equivalent to Sweden’s entire GDP. How? By “boosting fisheries productivity, removing harmful nutrients from seawater, and sequestering carbon dioxide.” The Kelp Forest Alliance recommends protecting 7.4 million acres and restoring 2.5 million acres by 2040 to support globally agreed-upon biodiversity protection goals.
In sum, nature is a quantifiable asset class. Investing in crucial, often overlooked marine ecosystems, in particular, would offer savvy investors and philanthropists immense ROI.
Investing in Marine Ecosystem Solutions
Around the world, solutionists are already doing this essential work, and require investment to continue and scale their crucial marine and coastal ecosystem conservation and restoration.
In Hong Kong’s Deep Water Bay, SOA Grantee archiREEF is leveraging the world’s first 3D-printed terracotta reef tiles to rehabilitate struggling coral. For-profit Ecopreneur Network (EN) member Coral Vita grows coral on land up to 50x faster in the Bahamas, while the productivity rate of EN member Reefgen’s robot is 75x greater than manual seagrass planting.
The Sustainable Ocean Alliance Charleston hub, now Carolina Ocean Alliance, is restoring salt marshes through its “Creek Collective.” SOA grantee and Kenyan initiative Mikoko Pamoja pioneered a Blue Carbon model where local women seed mangrove nurseries in handmade clay pots, paid for by the sale of carbon credits. In Indonesia, grantee Carbon Ethics monetizes mangrove planting as a viable blue job path for locals, resulting in sequestering tons of carbon.
The Kelp Forest Foundation, another SOA grantee, measures the impact of farmed giant kelp off the coast of Namibia to inform a kelp Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) model. Urchinomics restores kelp forests by paying divers to remove harmful, overgrazing urchins which are then sold as a delicacy, capitalizing on the concept of invasivorism while balancing natural capital.
Weighing Next Steps
Many more nonprofit and for-profit solutions have emerged that, with the proper investment, will enhance humanity’s collective ability to support nature’s invaluable ecosystem services. And given all the emerging research into these key environments, we can now conclusively state that the resulting benefits to investors (and humanity) would far outweigh any upfront costs.
For general inquiries about Sustainable Ocean Alliance and Seabird Ventures, connect here.