Extreme ocean stress
What does it mean
for business?
Do you know the full extent to which your
business is impacting on ocean systems?
What’s been happening in the last year?
Nearly every aspect of the global economy
is connected, either directly or indirectly, to
the world’s oceans. But multiple stresses are
taking their toll on the ocean and marine life,
from ocean warming and acidification,
to pollution, waste, oil spills, damaging
fishing practices, and shipping.
food chain, as plankton, sea plants,
herbivores and predators become scarcer,
leaving behind huge algal blooms.
Extreme ocean stress is now the major
environmental issue after climate change,
and is of course closely linked to it. As
climate expert, Prof. John Abraham, wrote
this year in The Guardian, ‘The oceans
are warming so fast, they keep breaking
scientists’ charts’.
And the world’s fisheries are far from
sustainable, with 90% already fully exploited
or overfished, but billions of unwanted fish
and other animals needlessly wasted each
year. Marine plastic waste has reached
epidemic levels, with one report issuing the
dire prediction that our oceans will contain
more plastic than fish by 2050.
The powerful combination of ocean warming
and acidification will decimate the marine
As oceans warm, sea levels rise. Asia’s
coastal rice fields are vulnerable, but so are
around 44% of the world’s population who
live within 100 kilometres of the coast.
Signals of change
In its most comprehensive ocean warming
report yet, the International Union for
Conservation of Nature (IUCN) warns that the
mean global temperature of the ocean will rise by
one to four degrees by the year 2100, with dire
consequences such as super storms and changes
in marine life behaviour.1
Flooding and salinisation of land has already
created eco-refugees in Bangladesh.2
Risks to human health are increasing as
pathogens spread more easily in warmer waters,
including cholera-bearing bacteria and harmful
algal blooms that cause neurological disease.3
There is a growing movement to embrace
circular economy strategies to alleviate marine
plastics, which one report estimates could generate
$80-120 billion in the ‘new plastics economy’.4
1.https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/09/160906085016.htm
2.http://thediplomat.com/2016/08/the-change-luck-city-dhakas-climaterefugees
3.https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/09/160906085016.htm
4.https://www.greenbiz.com/article/plastic-china-and-how-drive-yourbrand-circular-economy
o what extent is your supply chain or
T
reputation vulnerable to the results of
ocean stress?
What can you do now across your
value network to protect the health of
the oceans?
Retail and FMCG
How will workers in your supply chain
and your customers be affected by
declining access to fish protein?
How can you address plastic pollution
through product and packaging
innovation, and investment in recycling
infrastructures where you operate?
Are you exposed to reputational risks as
people’s awareness of marine pollution
and destructive fishing practices grows?
Apparel
How can you help scale up technologies
that create fibres and fabrics using
recovered ocean plastics?
an you reduce or eliminate laundryC
related plastics pollution?