The United Nations Global Compact has joined forces with the Sustainable Blue Economy Finance Initiative and the World Wide Fund for Nature’s Greening Financial Regulation Initiative (WWF GFRI) to release an updated version of the Ocean Investment Protocol (OIP).
The new edition gives central banks, financial regulators and supervisors their own set of recommendations for the first time.
The main change is that public financial authorities now have a clear role in the framework. The new guidance explains how they can build ocean-related risks and opportunities into financial stability assessments, supervisory practice, sustainable finance frameworks and risk management. The update also tightens the direction given to other financial market participants.
The case for the update is that deteriorating ocean health has moved beyond an ecological concern and now carries real economic and financial consequences. According to the organisations, reliance on marine ecosystems, and the dangers linked to their decline, can threaten financial stability, sovereign creditworthiness, food and energy supply, trade flows, and the resilience of economies and communities.
The protocol sets out several further priorities. It urges wider use of existing financial and risk-management tools so that institutions account for their dependence on healthy marine ecosystems and the risks of their degradation.
It also aims to expand the supply of investable projects in sectors such as sustainable seafood, shipping, ports, offshore renewable energy, coastal infrastructure, tourism, conservation and nature-based solutions.
In addition, it calls for dependable and accessible ocean data, shared methodologies and better ocean literacy across the financial system. It also argues that consistent regulation, standards and public finance are needed to attract private capital and speed up the transition.
The OIP was first introduced in May 2025 as a detailed guide for raising and scaling finance for a healthy, resilient ocean and a strong, innovative Sustainable Ocean Economy. It draws on the UN Global Compact Sustainable Ocean Principles and UNEP FI’s Sustainable Blue Economy Finance Principles. It offers a practical framework that financial institutions, insurers, ocean industries, governments, development finance institutions and financial authorities can use to bring their financial decisions in line with a sustainable, inclusive and resilient ocean economy.
The revision takes account of recent shifts in sustainable ocean finance and a wider view that ocean risks and opportunities are material to financial stability and long-term investment.
The organisations say that by giving the whole financial system a shared foundation, the protocol will help institutions manage ocean-related risk, identify new investment opportunities and direct capital towards activities that protect marine health. They add that this work supports progress on the Sustainable Development Goals, the Paris Agreement and global biodiversity commitments.
Copyright © 2026 RegTech Analyst
Copyright © 2026 RegTech Analyst
