We believe that climate change will transform economies and markets, and that firms producing climate mitigation or adaption solutions will outperform the broader markets over the long run.
Thus, we are all climate investors now. What does this mean? It means this is no time for patience. Act now. Don’t wait. We do not need more data. Do it for your future, for your children’s future, and certainly for all future generations.
It also means that you can still stick to your existing themes and areas of interest. Don’t stray from your areas of expertise as an investor. For us, that means the ocean, with a climate lens added. Human disruption of the climate is the biggest threat to the ocean, and at the same time the ocean can be our greatest ally in the fight against climate change. The ocean is an integral part of the global climate system, and a healthy ocean is essential to human well-being and global biodiversity.
The consequences of harmful human activities are disrupting the ocean’s life support functions for the planet, which include generating oxygen, moderating weather extremes, and producing food. These are economic threats with short- and long-term consequences. Sea level rise has already and will continue to reduce property values, damage infrastructure, and increase investor risk exposure. Temperature and chemical disruptions in the waters are reshaping global fisheries, affecting the abundance of commercial and other fish stocks, and causing fishery shifts to new geographies. Further, shipping, energy production and tourism are and will be increasingly disrupted by the increasing unpredictability of weather patterns, storm frequency and intensity, and other local conditions.
The good news is that there are investment options that provide alpha while also addressing these threats and restoring ocean health and abundance. One can define the most urgent ocean threats and the critical ocean solutions themes, and then, move on to identify business practices that threaten the ocean as well as actions they may take to reduce those threats
We are confident that we can have positive economic returns AND climate change mitigation. We just need cumulative efforts to increase positive economic activities such as ocean-based renewable energy, which both creates jobs and provides cleaner energy. We can invest to reduce emissions from ocean-based transport by funding new technologies that make shipping more efficient. We can also invest to preserve and restore coastal and marine ecosystems to increase abundance and enhance carbon storage, and to restore abundance in the ocean. This alone would increase food security for many.
These actions mean that the ocean can play a huge role in reducing CO2 emissions and closing the emissions gap with a 2 degree scenario by about 25%, thus mitigating climate change impact on all communities. At the same time, such investments will provide the opportunities for exciting new technologies, investment sub-sectors, and economic stabilization in the face of change.
- Mark Spalding, President, The Ocean Foundation; Board Member, Confluence Philanthropy
Mark J. Spalding, President of The Ocean Foundation is a member of the Ocean Studies Board of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (USA). He is serving on the Sargasso Sea Commission. Mark is a Senior Fellow at the Center for the Blue Economy at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies. And, he is an Advisor to the High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy. In addition, he serves as the advisor to the Rockefeller Ocean Strategy (an unprecedented ocean-centric investment fund) and is a member of the Pool of Experts for the UN World Ocean Assessment. He designed the first-ever blue carbon offset program, SeaGrass Grow. Mark is an expert on international environmental policy and law, ocean policy and law, and coastal and marine philanthropy.
