Make Money Matter: Expanding Impact Investing for Sustainable Oceans, Fisheries, and Livelihoods
More than three billion people depend on the ocean for their livelihoods and for sustenance, the vast majority of whom live in emerging markets around the world. As the largest connected biosphere on Earth, the ocean is home to an estimated 50-80 percent of all life and plays a critical role in stabilizing our ever-changing climate.
And yet, despite the profound impact on the lives and livelihoods, the ocean and fisheries are often overlooked when it comes to financing sustainable development. Recent studies have estimated a total annual funding gap of $150 billion for ocean conservation.[i] Among the United Nations’ seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), SDG14—“Life Below Water”—is among the least funded.[ii]
How can we mobilize adequate financing to ensure the sustainability and prosperity of oceans, fisheries, and coastal communities around the world? This is the question at the heart of this report, which was supported by Walton Family Foundation (WFF or foundation) to better understand whether impact investing funds are helping sustain oceans, fisheries, and the communities who depend on them. The pfc team’s goals was to better understand challenges and ways to overcome barriers to leverage new resources for sustainable oceans and fisheries.
[i] https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/uk/Documents/risk/ocean-financing.pdf
[ii] https://read.oecd-ilibrary.org/development/sustainable-ocean-for-all_bede6513-en#page122