Addressing Ocean Sustainability

The ocean is in trouble around the world. Recent studies show that almost no part of the global ocean is unaffected by human impacts. Marine biodiversity and resources are being degraded, destroyed and overexploited at an ever increasing rate and global scale. This is affecting the coastal inhabitants and communities worldwide that depend on marine areas for food and livelihood. Degradation of the natural functions of the ocean may also affect its critical role in regulating the climate. As the primary user of ocean space and resources, the private sector is key to the future of the marine environment. Oceans support a significant, unique component of the world’s biological diversity in a dynamic, inter-connected, three dimensional water world covering over 70% of the earth’s surface. Due to the fluid, global nature of the ocean, its natural resources and processes often extend over vast geographic scales. The marine environment provides 59% of the world’s ecosystem benefits, with the 5 % comprising the near shore marine environment, i.e. estuaries, coastal wetlands, mangroves, coral reefs, and continental shelves, alone providing 38 % of the world’s ecosystem goods and services. The worldwide economic value of ocean goods and services is estimated at between US$ 6 trillion and US$21 trillion. A substantial proportion of business and industry is entirely dependent upon ocean resources, services and space and most of these – for example, shipping, oil and gas, and cruise tourism – are big and are expanding rapidly, bringing ever-increasing impacts to the marine environment. Other growing ocean industries include aquaculture, seabed mining, bioprospecting and offshore wind energy – all creating their own sets of impacts and user conflicts. Sustainable development of the dynamic, interconnected global ocean “commons” – for which everyone, and no one, is completely responsible – presents unique challenges. The international “playing fi eld” and “rules” for the sustainable development of the ocean are being established through numerous organizations, programs, and agreements, most of which are UN related. Although the private sector is by far the main user of the ocean, and responsible for the impacts that governments are seeking to manage, with a few exceptions, especially the IMO, business and industry are largely not included, or only operate on the margins of the international ocean management processes. At the same time, governments and international bodies lack the capacity needed for surveillance and management of the global marine environment.

The Tragedy of the Ocean Commons

The sustainable development of the marine environment is inherently multi-sectoral and international, requiring the participation of all stakeholders. As the principal user, and source of many ocean impacts, the private sector is best placed to develop and drive solutions, but is often not doing so in a way that addresses the global scale of the issues. Industry efforts to address its impacts are usually piecemeal and reactive, usually undertaken by one company in a limited area. The problem is that there are few incentives for leadership in environmental responsibility and collaboration in a shared ocean ecosystem, even in near shore waters. It is often not clear how, and with whom, to work on the complex, intertwined, marine issues. In this “tragedy of the commons”, actions taken by one company to be a good ocean steward generate costs that are not perceived to have benefits, resulting in a competitive disadvantage and few incentives to tackle shared environmental problems. Although there are few incentives to take on shared environmental problems, some companies try to do business in a more environmentally sustainable way. Unfortunately, the efforts of one company or even a whole industry sector are not enough to address global, cumulative impacts of growing ocean use by a diverse range of industries. At the same time, some UN agencies, governments, and NGOs are working to address marine environmental problems, but are not engaging with ocean industries. A new approach is needed to overcome the limitations of government and international community capacity to manage the seas and the lack of a critical mass of private sector commitment. Global Ocean – Global Solutions The health, productivity and biodiversity of the world’s ocean cannot be secured without proactive, collaborative private sector leadership. Our work with ocean industries has confirmed that responsible companies want to address environmental impacts, differentiate themselves from poor performers, collaborate within and across sectors, and engage other ocean stakeholders. The problem is that there has been no structure and process to make this happen. The World Ocean Council has been formed to transform the way ocean sustainability is addressed by bringing together the responsible actors from a wide range of ocean industries to catalyze leadership and collaboration in ocean sustainability and stewardship – creating a culture of “Corporate Ocean Responsibility”. The World Ocean Council (WOC) is a fundamentally new and innovative approach and is working with ocean industries to contribute to the sustainability of the seas in several ways:

(a) International alliance on marine environmental problems. We are bringing together companies from a range of industries to develop a cooperative program of research and development regarding shared marine environmental problems, creating economies of scale in finding practical, cost effective, operational solutions to collective issues such as: ship collisions with marine mammals and marine debris.

(b) Ocean industry collaboration with other stakeholders. The WOC is organizing cross-sectoral industry working groups on priority marine conservation issues, such as marine protected areas, the Arctic and ocean governance, to increase industry understanding, willingness and ability to engage these issues within the diverse ocean business community and with other stakeholders. We will develop and assist constructive industry input to multi-stakeholder forums on these issues, for example, through industry participation in UN meetings on ocean governance and NGO workshops on designing marine protected area networks.

(c) Sustainability strategies to improve industry sector and individual company marine environmental performance. We are assisting industry groups to develop sustainability standards and best practices to foster sector-wide improvements. We are working with companies to document their ocean ecological footprint, develop ocean sustainability strategies to reduce their marine environmental impacts, measure their performance, and publicly report their results. (

d) Addressing inter-industry conflicts in ocean use. We will facilitate cross-sectoral dialogue and information sharing to address the increasing disputes that are arising between industries over the use of ocean space.

The next meeting of the WOC (24/25 June 2008, New York) will be held in association with the annual UN oceans deliberations, and be followed by a side event inside the UN to increase the understanding of government/UN/ NGO representatives to the UN oceans consultations of the proactive industry marine sustainability efforts. Interested companies and trade associations are invited to contact us for more information at paul.holthus@oceancouncil.org