Can the ‘blue economy’ deliver on its promise? Investors are starting see the ocean as an asset worth protecting

The term “blue economy” has been circulated among environmental commentators for years—usually meaning whatever the speaker wants it to mean. For some, it’s about sustainable fisheries and marine protected areas. For others, it’s a broad term that can encompass offshore wind, deep-sea mining, and blue carbon credits. And to skeptics, it’s a convenient buzzword that remains vague when it comes to measurable actions.

Until recently, the concept didn’t have an operational definition or a credible funding stream. That lets the term be understood in a range of ways, whether a corporate-friendly approach to conservation, or a new way to talk about extracting marine resources, sustainably or otherwise.

Yet the time when the ocean was treated as an afterthought in climate discussions is ending. A critical mass of investors, scientists, and community leaders are no longer asking if the blue economy is real and instead figuring out how quickly they can scale it.

That was my impression after the Villars Ocean Forum, a gathering of over 150 leaders from academic, activist, and business backgrounds. It’s a community of doers: People have already started projects and are now figuring out how to fund them.

In one corner, a glaciologist who’s just returned from a Greenland expedition reflected on the prospects for geoengineering, while in another, entrepreneurs and venture capit...