Investing in the Ocean: Financing the Path to 30×30
Every January, the World Economic Forum gathers leaders from politics, business, finance, academia, and civil society in the Swiss town of Davos to meet, converse, and take stock of humanity’s greatest risks and opportunities. Until recently, the ocean was largely left on the sidelines – literally out of sight and out of mind. Now, that tide is turning and there is growing recognition that ensuring the health of the ocean is an economic, social, and environmental imperative.
This year, the Forum launched ‘ACT Ocean’, an initiative to accelerate critical transformations for a healthy ocean and thriving economy. It includes a blue thread that connects the entire water cycle, from ocean to freshwater, underscoring its geopolitical, economic, and societal importance, and the critical role these ecosystems play in securing global stability across trade, livelihoods, food systems, and climate resilience.
WHY WE NEED FINANCE FOR THE OCEAN
Beneath the waves, a triple crisis of planetary heating, biodiversity loss and pollution is having huge impacts. Ocean surface temperatures hit record highs in 2025, contributing to the increasing frequency and severity of costly climate disasters. Overfishing and destructive industrial fishing is sucking the life out of our seas, with just 3.2% of marine protected areas highly or fully protected. These are the ‘biodiversity banks’ that regenerate ocean life and maintain the ocean’s biological pump (capturing and securing carbon dioxide).
But there is hope. We know that the biggest risk is inaction. We also know what the solutions are to revitalize the ocean and how to stop this trajectory of decline and realize the economic, social, and environmental opportunities that the ocean harbors.
Delivering the action that we need to secure a regenerating ocean with resilient and adaptive coasts requires investment. As Prime Minister Mia Mottley of Barbados once said: “Finance is the oxygen, not the destination.” Given that the ocean generates half the oxygen on Earth, providing the financial fuel to ensure that this critical Earth System is healthy and stable is common sense. But despite having an estimated value of USD$24 trillion, the ocean receives less than 1% of global capital flows, leaving a huge funding gap that stalls protection and resilience.
CLOSING THE OCEAN FINANCE DIVIDE
‘Ocean finance’ channels public and private capital into ocean and coastal resilience and, ultimately, the creation of a regenerative and sustainable blue economy. Central to this is the ‘30×30’ goal of protecting at least 30% of the world’s surface area and international waters by 2030, a commitment demanding bold investment amid today’s crises. It also includes investments into offshore renewable energy, ridge-to-reef solutions like waste management, nature-based solutions, sustainable fisheries and aquaculture, and decarbonizing shipping.
Sustainable investment, supported by clear regulatory frameworks and technical assistance, with a combination of grants, philanthropic funding, development finance, and private capital, is needed to close the ocean finance divide.
For the private sector to engage and invest, governments need to put skin in the game, and multilaterals must step up and step out.
Philanthropic and impact capital play a catalytic role by absorbing early-stage risk and demonstrating proof of concept, which helps unlock greater commercial finance down the line. Grants or concessionary funds can be channeled into locally led innovations, like microinsurance for small-scale fishers or mangrove carbon credits, that may not yet meet traditional risk-return criteria but have the potential for transformative impact.
Accessing private capital is often limited by factors like a poor understanding of natural capital returns, the perception of a limited pipeline of risk-adjusted investible projects, insufficient data and modelling capabilities to quantify ocean-derived risk, small transaction sizes, and unclear or undefined policy.
ORRAA’S MODEL FOR SCALING OCEAN FINANCE
The Ocean Risk and Resilience Action Alliance (ORRAA) was established to bring together stakeholders from multiple sectors and break through these barriers. Over the past six years, ORRAA has positioned itself as a catalyst in the global ocean finance landscape, filling the connective space between small, fragmented pilots and the mainstream capital markets where scale must ultimately occur. With over 130 members from finance, insurance, government, multilaterals and civil society, we have financially supported 50 projects in 30 countries.
ORRAA’s mission by 2030 is to activate at least USD$500 million of investment through finance and insurance products to build the resilience of 250 million climate vulnerable coastal people in the Global South. We start at the beachfront, where brilliant entrepreneurs are given the backing they need to thrive. But we recognize that we cannot just build from the ground-up. We need to deliver systemic change. We have to address the ‘missing middle’ or ‘valley of death’ where so many incredible innovations falter as they try to bridge the gap between grant funding and return-seeking investment.
ORRAA’s Sea Change Impact Financing Facility (SCIFF) provides a funnel through which innovative investment vehicles can progress, with technical assistance along the way. We must ensure that finance is fairly distributed and accessible to developing country coastal states and Small Island Developing States for whom access to capital is too often refused or slow and complex. We must sit at the same table, to listen and learn from the coastal communities we serve, championing locally led solutions that are investment-ready, replicable and scalable. Finally, we have to work from the top-down. This is where ORRAA’s #BackBlue Finance Commitment comes in. A joint initiative with the WEF’s Ocean Action Agenda, #BackBlue ensures that a regenerating and sustainable ocean has a seat at the table in the finance and insurance decisions being made by large institutional investors, insurers and asset managers.
CHARTING THE COURSE FOR MARINE 30X30
The window for ocean finance action is still open, but it is closing – and fast. We need to work together, to be patient with capital and impatient with action. It is time for a sea-change in investment flowing into ocean and coastal resilience. Together, we can chart a course that provides the financial support to effectively deliver marine 30×30 and a regenerative and sustainable blue economy that supports the long-term sustainability and prosperity of the ocean, to the benefit of everyone, everywhere.
Header image credit: Cameron Venti / Ocean Image Bank
About the author
Karen is co-founder and Executive Director of the Ocean Risk and Resilience Action Alliance (ORRAA), the only multi-sector collaboration connecting the finance and insurance sectors, governments, multilateral organisations, civil society, and local partners to pioneer finance and insurance products that incentivise investment into coastal and ocean resilience, and through Nature-based Solutions. She has worked on ocean conservation, law and policy for the past three decades and spoken and written extensively on ocean conservation issues. She previously served as CEO of Ocean Unite, co-founded with Sir Richard Branson and José María Figueres. Before that, she had roles as Senior Director for International Oceans at The Pew Charitable Trusts, and as Head of Greenpeace International’s Political & Business Unit as well as its Oceans campaign. She has spearheaded global campaigns to secure a new high seas biodiversity treaty, establish large marine reserves and sanctuaries, reform the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy, end illegal fishing and high seas bottom trawling, and drive political and policy action to protect marine species. She also initiated the Global Ocean Commission. Karen has master’s degrees in international environmental law and in international political economy. She is originally from South Africa and now lives in the United States. Karen is also the President of ORRAA Inc.
