A sunset fishing trip near the coastal town of Toguru, some 35 kilometres from Fiji's capital city Suva (Saeed Khan/AFP via Getty Images)

Ocean finance and the risk of bluewashing in the Pacific

Without governance grounded in regional values, blue finance risks repackaging extractive development as sustainability.

Larelle Bossi

19 May 20264 min read

Ocean finance is rapidly emerging as a central pillar of the global response to ocean degradation and climate change. Carbon credits linked to mangrove restoration are one example of the financial instruments being used to scale ocean protection.

But “blue finance” – as it is called – is not just a funding tool. It is a form of governance. It determines what counts as having value, who has authority to define it, and how benefits and risks are distributed. Without careful design, this blue finance approach risks reproducing the very inequities and environmental harms it seeks to address under a more appealing label.

Nowhere is this tension more visible than in the Pacific. The Pacific sits at the centre of the blue economy agenda – facing acute climate exposure while attracting financial efforts to protect ecosystems and sustain coastal ways of life. Yet Pacific states and communities have long advanced governance grounded in stewardship and intergenerational responsibility – not as emerging ideas, but as established systems.

Much of the current architecture of blue finance is being developed outside the region through multilateral institutions, private capital markets, and global standards bodies. In this model, finance is often treated as neutral: a mechanism for scaling solutions and mobilising capital. But financial instruments reshape governance. They prioritise certain forms of knowledge over others, elevate quantifiable metrics, and create new centres of decision-making authority. What can be measured becomes what matters.

This is evident in the growing focus on carbon markets and nature-based solutions. Ecosystems – mangroves, sea grasses, and saltmarshes – are increasingly valued for their capacity to sequester carbon, creating opportunities for credit generation and investment. Governments and institutions, including initiatives such as the Blue Carbon Accelerator Fund, are working to develop “investment-ready” projects that can attract private finance.

Blue is not a GPS coordinate, but a governance framework.

The logic is compelling: restore ecosystems, generate carbon credits, and create new revenue streams for conservation and communities. But the practice is far more complex.

Carbon market experiences in Papua New Guinea demonstrate that without strong governance, such mechanisms can trigger land disputes, inequitable deals, and opportunistic intermediaries. When finance is treated as the solution, governance is assumed rather than designed.

This is where the risk of “blue washing” emerges.

Just as “green” has been used to signal environmental virtue without delivering it, “blue” risks becoming a branding exercise attached to projects operating within extractive or externally driven governance models. The problem is not finance itself. Nor is it the urgency of mobilising capital for ocean protection. It is the assumption that scaling finance alone will produce equitable and sustainable outcomes. It will not.

Blue finance operates within and reshapes systems of power and decision-making. Without attention to questions of who governs, who benefits, and whose values are prioritised, it risks reinforcing existing inequalities while masking them under the language of sustainability.

This matters acutely in the Pacific, where ocean governance is not simply resource management, but identity, sovereignty, and cultural continuity. Financial models that fail to engage with these dimensions risk undermining the systems that have sustained ocean environments for generations.

What is required is not simply more blue finance, but better-governed blue finance grounded in social responsibility for the fair and ethical stewardship of communities and environments, now and into the future. Responsibility here goes beyond accountability. Accountability is retrospective: it asks who answers for outcomes. Responsibility is forward-facing, concerning the obligations assumed when entering systems that reshape ecological and social relations.

This distinction matters because “blue” itself is not neutral. Increasingly, “blue” is a morally laden term. While it originates as an ocean descriptor, in contemporary policy and academic discourse the use of the term blue signals a values-led approach to ocean governance.

“Blue” should not be understood as a location, but as a normative framework. It recognises the ocean as a living, interconnected system rather than an extractive frontier, and prioritises regeneration, stewardship, reciprocity, and intergenerational responsibility. It also requires engagement with diverse knowledge systems, including Indigenous and First Nations relational worldviews. “Blue” moves beyond sustainability as impact reduction toward actively sustaining and restoring ocean systems, while ensuring governance remains accountable to both people and place.

This distinction matters. “Green” intent does not make offshore energy “blue” for example. Nor does layering activities like kelp cultivation confer “blue” status without governance aligned to these values.

This has broader implications. If “blue” is reduced to a spatial label or branding exercise, it risks losing its normative force – whether for blue finance, blue deals, or blue economies. Properly understood, blue is not a GPS coordinate, but a governance framework.

Ultimately, the question is not whether blue finance can scale, but whether it can carry responsibility. If it cannot, it risks becoming another iteration of extractive development – repackaged in the language of sustainability. But if it is designed as a responsibility-led governance system – grounded in relational values, intergenerational obligations, and local authority – it has the potential to support more equitable and enduring forms of ocean stewardship.

About the author

Larelle Bossi

Dr Larelle Bossi is an ocean ethicist working on values-led ocean governance, with a focus on the Pacific and global ocean policy.

Topics

Climate & environment Pacific Islands