Staying Afloat: Firms, Markets, and SDG 14.

The private sector has been the leading polluter causing ocean acidification and the loss of rare maritime ecosystems and biodiversity. However, market forces have ironically tied their future success to the health of our oceans, as they stand most to gain from their recovery and most to lose from its demise.

The Big Blue

Over three billion people depend on marine and coastal biodiversity for their livelihoods. Our oceans provide vital natural resources, including food, medicines, biofuels, and other products. Oceans cover around 70 percent of the planet’s surface. Besides being the origin from which life emerged 3.5 billion years ago, they also serve as the earth’s regulator by moving warmth from the tropics towards higher latitudes and captivate carbon dioxide left in the air.

Oceans are crucial to our complex ecosystems, but progress towards the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goal 14: Life Below Water remains rigid. The lack of action is mostly due to the problematic situation of oceans within our nation-state system. The maritime territory is often either fought over, not allowing any government to establish a form of protection, or left alone, leaving nobody to take accountability over it. The transboundary nature inhibits effective policies and initiatives. On top of that, as oceans are logically uninhabited by humans, they obtain a lower priority from whoever has the legal authority over it

But should the governments be held mainly responsible in the first place?

Three aspects should be considered to understand who should be held responsible for addressing the issues facing our oceans. First, who are the main culprits of the degradation of marine ecosystems and biodiversity? Second, who stand to benefit most from achieving SDG 14? And third, who is most able to take effective action?

The Culprits

First, the primary cause of marine degradation is the private sector and its firms. Plastic pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, and nonpoint source pollution (oil and chemicals that wash into rivers and oceans) are an enormous threat to the ocean’s health. Firms contaminate the sea in various aspects.

One aspect is plastic pollution, and firms such as Coca Cola Company, PepsiCo, and Nestle lead the list of top producers of plastic trash that finds its way into the oceans. Annually, Coca Cola alone uses 3 million tons of plastic packaging, and, according to Greenpeace, there were substantial amounts of plastic found across 42 countries that end in the ocean from just these top three firms. Plastic takes many hundreds of years to decompose and breaks down slowly into small particles that are damaging when consumed by maritime wildlife. Greenhouse gas emissions are next and are primarily caused by the meat and dairy as well as the energy industries. Firms such as ExxonMobil Corp, Aramco, Shell, as well as JBS are responsible for the massive amount of pollution that leads to ocean acidification. Then we have pharmaceutical and chemical companies such as Bayer, Syngeta, and BASF, leading the list of non-point pollution that damages the coastal and maritime ecosystems.

The UN estimates that the economic impact of poor ocean management lies around an annual $572 billion, which mainly affects the private industry

Private Benefit from Healthy Oceans

Governments and consumers are increasingly putting the responsibility on the private industry for their part in environmental degradation. As a result, heavier taxes and more substantial regulatory burdens are put in place by regulators to help mitigate some of the damages, and profits are falling due to decreasing consumer demand. The UN estimates that the economic impact of poor ocean management lies around an annual $572 billion, which mainly affects the private industry. Especially in the case of SDG 14, the ecological damage is getting exponentially worse, meaning that the longer firms wait to address the issues, the more burdensome those economic mitigations will become. Those firms that take action will avoid consumer backlash and obtain government support.

From supply chains and shipping logistics to maritime resources, growing damage to the foundation of those practices as well as increasing limitations on the use of them will endanger the competitive advantages and the firms’ success

Mutually assured destruction

On top of that, entire industries depend on the oceans for their operations and economic activity. From supply chains and shipping logistics to maritime resources, growing damage to the foundation of those practices as well as increasing limitations on the use of them will endanger the competitive advantages and the firms’ success. For instance, if the fish populations restore to healthy levels, fisheries across the globe will see an increase in their shares and profitability as their primary resource becomes less scarce and goes up in supply.

If firms manage to reduce emissions to the point that can decrease ocean acidity levels, the ocean will be able to capture remaining emissions

The ocean as a solution

Lastly, it will also help firms to counter their carbon emissions. As the world went into a plant-a-tree frenzy during the Amazon wildfires, trying to capture more carbon emissions, one significant solution was mostly left aside. The ocean is one of the largest carbon absorbers, taking in around 26 percent of global emissions. It is taking a toll on our oceans, but if firms manage to reduce emissions to the point that can decrease ocean acidity levels, the ocean will be able to capture remaining emissions, helping firms that cannot quickly go carbon neutral to achieve sustainable levels of production. Especially by creating seaweed farms, repairing maritime ecosystems, and recovering critical marine organisms such as plankton, the ocean can become an essential natural solution for capturing carbon.

Effective Markets

Fortunately, the private industry is also best suited to handle a practical and efficient approach. From financial services to the energy sector to the fishing industry, by creating a proper purpose strategy towards SDG 14, they can improve the planet’s marine ecosystem.

Avoiding boycotts

Firms have the proper micro incentives to act towards helping the oceans. Their customer bases are becoming more aware of the damages they and their operations are causing and are therefore demanding more change. The simplicity of the fundamentals of supply and demand market forces cause firms to move towards more sustainable solutions naturally.

Market forces create opportunities

Those solutions will be provided by emerging firms that help other industries become sustainable. Investments towards essential research & development are responding positively to the growing demand for advances in ocean-based clean technology (cleantech). Off-shore wind-energy is transforming the energy industry, advances in battery and fuel cell technology are helping the shipping industry, and the new trends in meat alternatives are changing the high-emitting agriculture industry and diminish over-fishing. These new private sustainable industries, of which nearly all firms all customers for, commercialize sustainable solutions, attract financial investments, and quicken the improvement of maritime ecosystems and biodiversity, at a much faster rate than any government could realize.

Call your policymaker

Moreover, the private industry has a massive sway on the policymaking within governments. Usually, this is pointed out as an issue as, so far, many enterprises have used this influence to avoid regulatory change. However, as previously mentioned, the mitigation of environmental damage will become a greater private interest. Disappearing fish populations have fisheries concerned, rising ocean acidity and decreasing marine organisms are reducing our ability to capture carbon emissions, and more frequent climate disasters are increasing costs. On top of that, as mentioned above, new industries that profit from regulatory changes are becoming increasingly powerful. Firms are, therefore, a central player in setting the agenda for acting towards SDG 14. Of course, there will be opposition, but policymakers are aware of society’s benefits, and when more firms will start to assist in advocating for regulatory change, it will accelerate the implementations of sustainable solutions.

Staying Afloat

All in all, firms and the private sector are not only most responsible but are also most capable and will be among the greatest beneficiaries for improving our planet’s oceans. This reality is, by all means, a paradox, as many firms still act counterproductive to their longterm interests. Governments thus have a meaningful role to play in implementing regulation that aligns with the SDG framework, directing the markets towards sustainable solutions, and investing in promising infant technology. Especially as 59 percent of the historic emissions come from state-owned companies worldwide, and they remain the legitimate authority to punish wrongdoers, there is undoubtedly a need for a notable degree of government involvement.

Market forces function as an indispensable incentive for firms to adapt to a changing world and start supporting action towards the SDGs

However, market forces function as an indispensable incentive for firms to adapt to a changing world and start supporting action towards the SDGs and, in this case, SDG 14: life below water. As consumers and regulators will hold firms accountable for their part in environmental degradation, firms will try to showcase their sustainable efforts. As they stand to benefit most from healthier maritime ecosystems and biodiversity, firms will invest in viable alternatives and sustainable solutions to mitigate the issues. And finally, because firms, and the private sector, are the most capable of enforcing change, they plainly have a responsibility to act. Those firms who take that responsibility and create concrete purpose and SDG strategies will see tremendous opportunities. Those who do not will undoubtedly face extraordinary difficulties to, ironically, stay above water.

Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com.