A group of environmental finance organisations have set out a vision for high-integrity marine natural capital markets for the UK in a consultative report published this week, which they hope will help close an estimated funding gap of close to £50 billion for marine ecosystems.
Blue Marine Foundation, the Crown Estate, Finance Earth, and Pollination published a report on Tuesday that proposes key barriers and solutions to the development of high-integrity natural capital markets in the marine environment across the UK.
“Coastal areas, estuaries, and offshore waters contribute significantly to the country’s blue economy, worth an estimated £47 bln and representing over 500,000 jobs,” said Caroline Price, senior development manager of habitat creation at the Crown Estate.
“There remains an estimated £56 bln funding gap to deliver nature recovery in the UK. The potential for private finance to help bridge this gap and radically scale up the flow of investment into this vital work is significant, provided it focuses on delivering high-integrity outcomes for society and nature,” added Price in a statement.
As much as 90% of the UK’s marine protected areas are still bottom-trawled and dredged, according to the report, which combined with overfishing and pollution from agriculture and urban areas, is putting marine ecosystems at risk.
“Despite increasing recognition that the ocean is vital in our fight against climate change, we are yet to see ambitious financial investment from the private sector in protecting it,” said Dan Crockett, director of ocean and climate at Blue Marine Foundation.
The organisations said the report aims to build consensus around challenges to marine nature markets in the hope of unlocking investment into aquatic habitat restoration and conservation. They categorised a series of barriers to high-integrity marine natural capital markets as financial, scientific, and related to policy.
Financial barriers include investor confidence and challenges to obtaining revenue streams to scale the market. The group recommendations include launching accelerator programmes to increase investment readiness, demonstrating the business case, and setting up a buyers alliance of early corporates who could cover set-up costs.
Earlier this week, the UK government-backed Nature Accelerator was launched. The fund aims to incubate projects for investment readiness across land and aquatic environments, including coastal and marine habitats.
Other gaps highlighted in the report include uncertainty in the extent and condition of marine ecosystems with little cross-sectoral dialogue, as well as a lack of consensus on monetisation approaches and limited government resources to build capacity.
Scientific and policy recommendations include creating a centralised publicly available data warehouse for baseline and predictive modelling tools, establishing a cross-cutting blue economy strategy, and working to address design challenges of marine net gain.
Input for the report has already been received from around 100 stakeholders across finance, the private sector, academia, and civil society but the document is still open for consultation. Interested parties have until Oct. 26 to provide feedback on the 20 recommendations outlined in the report.
By Tom Woolnough – tom@carbon-pulse.com
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