Greening the Ocean Economy

A healthy ocean is central to the future welfare and prosperity of humankind. Not only does it play an essential role in mitigating carbon emissions and generating the oxygen needed for life on earth, it also nurtures rich biodiverse habitats and provides invaluable ecosystem services, including food provisioning, coastal protection and recreational benefits. The ocean therefore also provides valuable opportunities for economic growth, development, and employment.

Yet, the ocean is facing unprecedented pressures from human activities, including pollution from plastics, over-exploitation of fish, offshore oil and gas development, shipping, sewage, fertiliser and agricultural runoff. As a result, the state of marine biodiversity and ecosystems is degrading at an alarming rate.

The OECD is supporting governments to address pressures and negative effects of cumulative ocean pollution and economic activity on human well-being and ecosystem health. For instance, it helps to identify and promote policy that can effectively ensure that fisheries and aquaculture are environmentally, economically, and socially sustainable. The OECD Review of Fisheries 2022 brings together available data on fish stock health, fisheries management, and support to fisheries to assess the health of fisheries and investigate how public policies could better support fisheries’ contribution to global food security and the ocean economy.

OECD work on the ocean spans across multiple directorates and reflects an integrated “whole-of-government” approach to respond to complex challenges by mobilising expertise across many policy fronts, covering environmental, economic, financial and social dimensions.

OECD analysis and guidance supports countries to fulfil their international commitments on the ocean including Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 14 on Life Below Water, the Convention on Biological Diversity, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and the Paris Agreement on climate change.

The OECD also provides policy insights on managing and preventing water pollution and marine plastic waste. The recently released Global Plastics Outlook finds that, globally, the annual production of plastics has doubled, soaring to 460 Mt and 6.1 Mt of plastic waste leaked into rivers, lakes and the ocean. The report also identifies effective policies to curb the plastic pollution curve.

Realising the potential of the ocean economy while protecting ocean resources and marine ecosystems is a significant and growing challenge. The ocean economy is defined by the OECD as the sum of the economic activities of ocean-based industries, together with the assets, goods and services provided by marine ecosystems. To support governments in the transition to a more sustainable ocean economy, the OECD is mobilising expertise across relevant oceanbased sectors, covering environmental, economic, financial and social dimensions.

The OECD projects a doubling of the ocean economy from 2010 to 2030, reaching USD 3 trillion and employing 40 million people. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic slowdown, 2021 showed a renewed growth for many ocean-based industries. The interdependency of ocean-based industries and marine ecosystems has led to a growing recognition of the need for an integrated approach to ocean management. The OECD contributes to such efforts by drawing from a range of work – including marine biodiversity and ecosystem services, climate, pollution, infrastructure resilience and sustainable ocean finance.

The first step to realise the potential of the ocean economy is the collection of reliable and timely data on the sustainability of the ocean economy, the well-being and resilience of coastal communities, and the health of marine ecosystems. The OECD contributes to this directly via its Sustainable Ocean Economy Database, which helps support SDG 14. Additionally, as the knowledge base on marine ecosystems’ accounting builds, countries could greatly benefit from refining the international environmental accounting guidelines and marine ecosystem services’ classification. The OECD is currently developing an experimental OECD satellite accounts on ocean economic activities to improve international comparability and as a building block to a future ocean account. Lastly, a new OECD foresight exercise, launched in 2022, will provide a global outlook on the future of the ocean economy and develop key trends and data projections on the ocean economy to 2045.

The sustainable development of the ocean economy is particularly relevant for developing countries, as they are on average more reliant on ocean economy sectors than high-income countries. Yet, they only capture a small fraction of the global value added from the ocean economy. The OECD Sustainable Ocean for All Initiative produced a comprehensive report quantifying the economic trends of the ocean economy across developing countries and identifying existing and innovative policy and financing tools to enhance its sustainability. In 2021, the “Blue Recovery Hubs” project was launched to assist developing countries in restarting and transforming their ocean economy sectors.

Recognising that healthy oceans depend on decisions taken on land, the OECD project on Cities and Regions for a Blue Economy supports national and subnational governments in achieving resilient, inclusive, sustainable and circular blue economies. The 2022 OECD Global Survey on Localising the Blue Economy, which collected 56 responses from subnational governments from 30 OECD and non-OECD countries, highlights the need to apply a functional lens to the blue economy, developing city-basin interlinkages on the ground.

Key Publications, websites and databases

• Global Plastic Outlook: Policy Scenarios to 2060 (2022)

• Global Plastic Outlook: Economic Drivers, Environmental Impacts and Policy Options (2022)

• Eliminating government support to illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing (2022)

• Review of Fisheries (2022)

• International effects of fisheries support policies (2022)

• The role of development co-operation in tackling plastic pollution (2022)

• COVID-19: Toward a Blue Recovery in Small Island Developing State (2021)

• Development co-operation for a sustainable ocean economy in 2019: a snapshot (2021)

• Cities and Regions for a Blue Economy (2021)

• Blueprint for improved measurement of the international ocean economy: an exploration of satellite accounting for ocean economic activity (2021)

• Sustainable Ocean for All: Harnessing the Benefits of Sustainable Ocean Economies for Developing Counties (2020)

• Marine Protected Areas: Economics Management and Effective Policy Mixes (2017)

• Ocean Economy in 2030 (2016)

• www.oecd.org/ocean

• http://oe.cd/fisheries-aquaculture

• http://oe.cd/fse-stats

Contact for more information

Claire Jolly

Science, Technology and Innovation Directorate

Email: Claire.jolly@oecd.org

Claire Delpeuch

Trade and Agriculture Directorate

Email: claire.delpeuch@oecd.org

Will Symes

Trade and Agriculture Directorate

Email: Will.Symes@oecd.org

Katia Karousakis

Environment Directorate

Email: Katia.Karousakis@oecd.org

Peter Borkey

Environment Directorate

Email: Peter.Borkey@oecd.org

Ivan Haščič

Environment Directorate

Email: Ivan.Hascic@oecd.org

Piera Tortora

Development Co-operation Directorate

Email: Piera.Tortora@oecd.org

Oriana Romano

Centre for Entrepreneurship, SMEs, Regions and Cities

Email: Oriana.Romano@oecd.org