Cleantech Group’s baseline study of the global blue economy innovation ecosystem first sought to explain what the blue economy is in a cleantech context, and then to analyze the demand pull, supply of innovation, investment, and technology trends.  The goal is to ultimately identify opportunities, challenges, and gaps to achieve systemic change.    

The oceans are essential to our planetary health, society, and economy. The annual gross marine product of the oceans is estimated to be $2.5T per year. However, over exploitation, pollution, and climate change are severely damaging the ocean which could cost us $428B annually by 2050 and cause irrevocable damage or extinction to wildlife. With industries such as shipping and fish protein only expected to grow, now is the time to ensure development in the ocean is sustainable.

The ocean is our greatest ally against climate change, having absorbed around 25% of anthropogenic CO₂ emissions since the Industrial Revolution and continues to have enormous potential for capture and storage. The High-Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy estimates that the ocean economy can deliver 21% of the greenhouse gas emission reductions needed to meet the Paris Agreement target of limiting the average global temperature rise to 1.5°C by 2050.

What is the Blue Economy?

The blue economy represents all industries dependent on or impacting our oceans. This encompasses innovative technologies that reduce, monitor, prevent, or regenerate environmental damage. In the context of cleantech, these technologies include:  

Extract Resources

Desalination, hydrogen, floating solar, wind, hydro & marine, operations & maintenance, energy storage

Harvest Life

Alternative proteins, aquaculture, algae & seaweed, fishing

Maintain & Repair

Blue carbon, nature restoration, resilient infrastructure, waste collection, plastics recycling, bioplastics & wastewater treatment

Monitor

Climate risk, ocean environment monitoring, nature monitoring, and ocean vehicles 

Transportation & Commerce

Fuel-efficient and electric vessels, shipping fuels, ports, fleet management, supply chain and logistics optimization, and anti-fouling

Innovation will play a key role in enabling sustainability and restoration in our oceans, with technologies such as new maritime fuels the key to unlocking maritime decarbonization. The development of Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (MRV) technologies will be the primary enabler for ocean carbon or nature restoration credits. However, the blue economy technology sector has been underfunded with VC investment representing only 4% of all VC cleantech investments (January 2019 – May 2024).

Investment is now shifting out of philanthropy and attracting VC and CVC dollars, with dedicated capital, funds, investors, and accelerator programs for ocean technology innovators increasing in number. However, many traditional VCs are cautious due to lack of knowledge and insular and traditional incumbent industries.  

There are strong drivers developing for incumbent industries. Catalysed by regulations, corporate pioneers in maritime shipping have a limited window to capitalize decarbonization opportunities in new maritime fuel and electric vessels. Key sectors such as offshore renewables, aquaculture, and plastics recycling are scaling rapidly, supported by proven and resilient business models.

New markets are being created in monitoring, enhancing the safety and longevity of offshore and coastal assets. The business cases for emerging high-impact sectors like blue carbon and nature restoration are improving, although they still encounter challenging market conditions and significant barriers to entry (e.g., certification, frameworks, and MRV for new offset project types).

Leading ecosystems in North America, Norway, Spain, France, Australia, and the UK are poised to be global hubs for ocean innovation, benefitting from ESOs networks, marketing, and investment.

These industries and emerging markets will continue to grow, but sustaining ocean ecosystem services and realizing decarbonization and restoration potentials rely on sustained financial support from investors, piloting and scaling partnerships from incumbents, and ratcheting decarbonization and ocean protection regulations from governments.  

This report serves as the first in a series of in-depth analyses exploring the start-ups, investors, nations, and corporations that are shaping the sustainable blue economy globally. The next stages will build on the above to ultimately identify opportunities, challenges, and gaps to achieve systemic change. If you would like to have access to this or to be included in the research please reach out to Holly Stower, who leads our Blue Economy research.