The Prince Albert II Foundation and Monaco Asset Management have launched a fund that aims to invest €100 million this decade in start-ups seeking to reduce ocean pollution and protect marine ecosystems.
Launched at the ongoing Monaco Ocean Week, the founders said the ReOcean Fund intends to catalyse the next generation of ocean innovations to support the transition to a net zero, regenerative, and more equitable economy.
“The creation of the ReOcean Fund is in line with the efforts undertaken for many years by the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation to promote the most innovative companies that have an impact on the safeguard of life below water,” said foundation CEO Olivier Wenden in a statement.
With a global reach, the fund will seek to help reduce key sources of ocean pollution, transform the way we produce seafood and travel across the ocean, protect marine ecosystems, and equip ocean stakeholders with robust and transparent data, according to its website.
That means it will focus its investments across five sectors:
• Solutions to plastic pollution
• Healthy, regenerative, and equitable blue food
• Green shipping and yachting
• Restoration and protection
• Ocean data
“Impact measurement [will] be harmonised with KPIs in the Ocean Impact Navigator,” according to the fund.
The ocean is under stress from climate change, 9-14 million tonnes of plastic pollution annually, more than a third of fish stocks estimated to be overfished, and massive habitat loss, including the loss or degradation of around half of mangroves and 30% of wetlands and seagrasses.
There was cause for optimism earlier this month, however, when negotiators from around 200 nations agreed on a new global ocean treaty, addressing the conservation and use of marine biodiversity of areas beyond national jurisdictions, and countries at a conference in Panama reiterated financial ocean protection pledges of some $20 billion.
Private investors are involved as well, with London-based SWEN Capital Partners last week closing the €170-mln Blue Ocean Fund and Sweden’s Ingka last month investing €30 mln in impact investment fund Ocean 14 Capital.
By Stian Reklev – stian@carbon-pulse.com
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