Terrasse

The WTO Agreement on Fishery has recently entered into force. Upon this historical milestone, I participated a virtual global roundtable on this topic, with experts from other continents.

Roundtable: What next for fisheries subsidies?

2025 is indeed a huge year for China fishery when much progress was witnessed. Besides this agreement that China has accepted in 2023, its ratification of FAO Agreement on Port States Measures also marks a critical milestone on the global battle against IUU. We feel privileged to have always been supporting the process.

It is another starting point. There should be even more to do and we are always ready to provide technical support in the implementation.

I am previleged to speak in the panel discussion of “Scaling Sustainable Blue Solutions” in the ReThink, HK’s flagship event for sustainability.

Scaling Sustainable Blue Solutions

I summarized WWF’s role in driving the evolution of Sustainable Blue Economy, and introduced several knowledge products for both public and private sectors.

Here is what I have said.

Self-introduction

I have been with WWF-China for 17 years well following the global trend of environment movement. I started doing communication in 2009. After that, I conserved migratory birds and then took the lead of the wetland programme, on site conservation at the beginning, then policy advocacy on wetland management and later planning. In 2022, I took up the ocean programme and revamped the team into sustainable blue economy, focusing not only on traditional issues like fishery, but also in depth on industry engagement and blue finance.

I believe this is the trend of global conservation. The iconic animals can raise people’s awareness, but only through changing the economy can we really conserve the ocean.

To start us off, could you briefly introduce the evolution of “sustainable blue economy”? Last year when you were in the ReThink, you mentioned a China version blue taxonomy, how well is it going now in the mainland China context?

You may have heard several terms related to SBE, sometimes confusing. I would briefly introduce the history, so that you could see the stages in the evolution to understand it.

Starting from about 2010, the world began to realize that the protection of nature should involve the economic sector and green finance began to emerge. And ocean was of no exception.

The first step is to understand the benefits people gain from ocean. In 2015, in the report of Reviving the Ocean Economy, WWF evaluated the global ocean assets as 24 trillion USD, and annually it yields production worth 2.5 trillion USD, ranking as the 7th largest economy in the world. That is a 10% year-over-year return, more profitable than most investments.

With these figures, in 2018, WWF gave this new economy a clear definition, that is S-B-E. I would emphasis that it is different from blue economy. In some cases, the blue economy can refer to any non-conventional marine economy. Somebody may call deep seabed mining as a blue economy since it’s about high technology, but it is on the opposite of SBE. Sustainable means that the economy should provide social and economic benefits for current and future generations. Blue means that the activities should restore, protect, and maintain diverse and productive marine ecosystems. Economy refers to the economy based on clean technologies, renewable energy, and circular material flows.

To promote it, WWF, together with like-minded organizations like the European Investment Bank, declared the Sustainable Blue Economy Finance Principles. The fourteen principles were later hosted by UNEP, becoming the UNEP Finance Initiative in 2019. This is the first global framework to deliver guidance to both the private and public sector finance onto ways towards a sustainable blue economy.

Later, many studies on the investments, like WWF Sustainable Bank reports are launched, and methodologies supporting the implementation you may have heard are developed, like TNFD.

Now you see the history of SBE. Now we are in the process of providing guidance for implementation.

As I have introduced in the ReThink event last year, based on the existing policies and standards in mainland China, applying the principles WWF has been advocating, we developed a blue taxonomy, including about 150 industrial sectors. This is a mainland China-customized instrument for financial institutions and their regulators.

Thanks to this blue taxonomy, we not only made ourselves clear on what we can recommend, but also demonstrated our expertise. Thus, we got the privelege to talk to the policy makers and offered our recommendations. As a result, in the latest 2025 version of Category of Green Bond Endorsed Projects issued by the People’s Bank of China and other administrations, many of our suggestions are adopted and become part of a market policy. This category will come to effect next month.

This is a big step for China to develop its SBE.

Yimo, you just mentioned taxonomy as an instrument for SBE, what are new trend? What are your next plans and how does it relate to HK?

I just mentioned the taxonomy as an instrument for financial institutions and regulators. Now I would like to introduce two recent milestones, one for governments and one for industries. They are both related to HK.

Here on the screen is a cross boundary study that two WWF offices, Hong Kong and Mainland China, carried out together.

Based on the landscape and seascape types, we calculated the GEP, gross environment production from the ecosystem service in the GBA. We found out that, while less than half of the total area is covered by ocean, ocean provides 73% of the GEP.

The majority of the value results from its regulatory services, e.g. climate change mitigation like carbon sequestration, or coastal line protection.

As you can see, these are all public services. We believe this study can be a good reference for MSP, for high-level guidance on governmental budgeting, and for EIAs cases, environment impact assessment, etc.

Another milestone is a report for industries, led by our US office, with contribution from WWF global network. Here on the screen shows the structure of the study.

We adopted the SBTN’s action framework, AR3T, as an organizing principle, namely avoid future (negative) impacts, reduce unavoidable (negative) impacts, restore and regenerate ecosystems, and transform the broader social and economic systems in which companies operate.

We mapped sector-specific actions for offshore wind, coastal and marine tourism, shipping, and seafood.

Taking seafood as an example, we introduced six categories of risks, from seabed disturbance to wild population impacts, and list our recommendations in general.

To introduce action pathways, we then break the sector down to aquaculture and wild catch, and explain details on risk management and actions.

If you happen to be in these industries or would invest in them, please make sure to read it.

One last message: I would let our audience be aware that WWF global team is working on a SBE guidance for central banks. We plan to launch it later this year.

Stay tuned.

One sentence respond to highlight key narrative and wrap up

For public sector, HK has the advantage in piloting complex issues, like seafood traceability, which requires all elements, including supply chain, technology, market, investment, etc. They are all available in just one city. NGOs should be the catalyst among different sectors. We are ready to support.

I believe that there are more reps from private sectors among the audience. If you are interested in understanding more the relationship between your business and ocean, please approach my colleague Lydia and me.

Together, let’s contribute to a nature positive ocean.

牙买加金士顿时间7月22日，在国际海底管理局第30次年会上，我很荣幸能代表WWF团队发言。算下来，这是第一次在联合国机构的大会上发言。会前，我与同事们认真打磨了发言稿，既要展示我们的立场，为自然发声，也要避免冲突。因此我将深海采矿的风险与联合国可持续目标、昆明-蒙特利尔全球生物多样性框架、本地社区相结合，并声明科学基础和多边主义的价值。

On July 22nd, at the 30th Session of the International Seabed Authority in Kingston, Jamaica, I was honored to speak on behalf of the WWF International. This was, in fact, my first time speaking at a United Nations agency conference. Before the session, my colleagues and I carefully refined the speech — aiming to clearly convey our position and speak up for nature, while also avoiding conflict. We therefore linked the risks of deep seabed mining with the SDGs, the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, and indigenous people, while emphasizing the importance of a science-based approach and the value of multilateralism.

The intervention was drafted and revised together with Jessica Battle and Kaja Fjærtoft, my colleagues. This is a true team work.

https://enb.iisd.org/international-seabed-authority-isa-council-30-2-23july2025

I attended the UNEP FI Regional Roundtable Asia Pacific 2025 in Suzhou and spoke as a panelist in the session on Advancing the Blue Economy in Asia Pacific.

Since this is a regional meeting, I did not mention too much about our work in China, but more on how we contributed to the development of the global sustainable blue economy trend, as well as our work in other regions like Southwest Indian Ocean.

My colleague Louise helped me much in selecting my key messages and explaining me the history.

The panel session was chaired by Romie Goedicke den Hertog, Co-Lead, Nature, UNEP FI. Here is what I mentioned.

———

Question:
Sustainable blue economy. Introduce the framework of blue finance. Why is it important to marine industries and their investors?

I would like to introduce WWF’s philosophy of blue finance – blueing the finance system and financing blue. Blueing the finance systems refers to the development of methodologies and instruments for blue finance, while financing blue means pilot cases.

So from my perspective, this question is more about blueing the finance system.
1, As a conservation NGO, WWF used to explain the importance of ecosystem by portraying flagship species. Although that evokes sympathy, it is hard to translate into action, especially the actions from the drivers behind ecosystem degradation, I mean the human activities and the finance behind. Therefore, we evaluated the monetary value of ocean so that countries and regions can understand ocean from an economic perspective. A conservative estimation of the ocean assets is $24 trillion, which provides annual benefits of US$2.5 trillion, a 10% YoY return, higher than most investment portfolios. The annual production US$2.5 trillion also enables ocean to rank as the 7th economy in the world.

2, However, not many financiers are aware of the level of financing going into ocean-related businesses, nor whether this poses salient risks. In 2021, through an assessment of “value at risk”, WWF provided clear evidence that business-as-usual trajectory will likely lead to financial losses of US$ 8.4 trillion over the next 15 years. That is about 1/3 of the total ocean assets.

3, It is more concerning when we consider the levels of mainstream finance going into the global south, where dependency on the ocean and freshwater’s natural assets is high. To understand the finance flows into one of the most significant biodiversity hotspots in the global south – the Southwest Indian Ocean, a recent WWF report found that over US$ 20billion of credits and over US$7bn of investments are targeted at seafood, energy and maritime transport across the region; the majority of which is derived from the global north. However, after checking prominent FIs financing this region, we found that only a handful had policies in place to manage ESG risks relating to all blue economy sectors.
It is a pity that WWF has not done an Asia Pacific study, but we expect a similar situation based on earlier studies in this area.

4, This is why WWF has been actively supporting the UNEP FI in promoting Sustainable Blue Economy Finance Principles among the finance sector. Now the 88 members represent over US$11 trillion in AUM (assets under management).

Question:
How do WWF see the blue finance strategies to address interconnected impacts between nature and people?

From our perspective, this is financing blue, since these are financing activities on the ground. I would take the involvement of coastal communities as the most typical instance.

1, Coastal communities are a typical group of people that have a dual role in terms of coastal ecosystems. For these communities, the ecosystems are significant contributors to the local economy; at the same time, they also provide important functions in the restoration, protection, and sustainable management of coastal ecosystems.

2, However, the IFC estimates that 40% of formal Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises in developing countries have unmet financing needs. Therefore, it is crucial that the transition to a sustainable blue economy is delivered at all levels – ensuring that coastal communities are empowered to manage their natural resources and develop in ways that secure their long-term needs.

3, They face many barriers to getting finance, including the lack the appropriate deal size and risk-return ratios to match available capital. Because of that, they often face high transaction costs, low or slow return profiles. Due to their dispersed and fragmented nature, they have governance challenges and capacity challenges. This is common in global coastal communities, and Asia Pacific countries are of no exception.

4, Although people usually expect incubators and accelerators to support the Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises, WWF found that most still focused on high-growth sectors. Therefore, WWF started its attempt in Africa to develop a blue venture builder.

5, As is known to many people, WWF funded a number of conservation projects that involve improving community livelihood, so it was an excellent place to start testing whether there are opportunities to bridge the gap between grant-based projects to revenue revenue-generating, self-sustainable enterprises. The first step is to assess the pipeline of bankable projects, typically income-generating or cost-saving opportunities which create benefits for marine conservation and restoration, such as community ecotourism, mariculture (e.g. seaweed farming), small-scale fisheries, cold chain or supply chain development. All are pre-investment ready, requiring significant capacity building, technical support, and business planning.

6, We hope to support them to demonstrate returns and impact and thus they can attract commercial forms of investment. We are now testing this approach in Tanzania and Madagascar, with the aim of aggregating revenue streams from different sources and attracting finance at scale.

I believe, many of such successful cases can be good reference for Asia Pacific region.

On the World Environment Day 2025, I took a Podcast interview with Climate Watch programme in CGTN. Since the hot topic these days are the UNOC-3, the third United Nations Ocean Conference and this Podcast features climate, the perfect overlap goes to PLASTIC!

Here is the post aired.
https://radio.cgtn.com/podcast/news/5/Why-is-ending-plastic-pollution-crucial-to-tackling-climate-change/2715952

6月5日环境日，我和央视的CGTN做了一期播客，讨论了减少塑料污染对于减缓气候变化的作用。