Forty years ago, the global financial system stopped underwriting an industry that had been considered normal practice for two centuries. The International Whaling Commission’s 1982 moratorium on commercial whaling is one of the clearest examples of a previously normalized industry being declared unacceptable. Capital was reallocated. Insurance was repriced. Ports and shipyards repurposed. Public subsidies evaporated. Humpback whales began to recover from near extinction.
That shift was not only ecological—it was also economic. Whales underpin economic resilience by supporting healthy marine ecosystems through boosting plankton stocks, enhancing carbon sequestration through nutrient cycling, and sustaining ocean-based livelihoods such as fisheries or tourism. In this article, we explain why conserving ocean biodiversity is increasingly material to financial institutions and invite banks and insurers to help design new financial vehicles under One Ocean Finance – a new initiative led by UN agencies and global partners to boost finance for ocean-dependent industries and blue economy sectors.
The question for ocean finance is no longer whether to step away from harm, but whether the sectors that rely on the ocean can be redesigned to actively support recovery at the pace and scale marine ecosystems require. While the humpback whale is a success story, the North Atlantic right whale for example is still being pushed toward extinction, not by harpoons, but by ship strikes and fishing gear entanglement.
The next forty years are unlikely to repeat the 1986 moratorium’s clean break. Instead, they will follow a more gradual path, from moral consensus to regulatory change and capital reallocation. For financial institutions, this transition presents both risk and opportunity. Legal and liability risks linked to ocean harm are becoming more visible and material, and institutions that anticipate them can reduce their exposure to future losses. At the same time, opportunities remain significant: cumulative blue-labelled issuance reached USD 5 billion over 2018–2021,[1] compared to USD 2.2 trillion of green issuance since 2006. Estimates point to a blue themed investment opportunity of over USD 3 trillion until 2050 for areas such as the decarbonisation of marine transportation, protection of marine and coastal ecosystems, marine renewable energy, and sustainable aquaculture.[2] To manage ocean-related risks and tap into blue finance opportunities, financial institutions can act now across three time horizons:
Triage: quick wins within the current system
Emerging tools such as environmental DNA, fluke identification, passive acoustic monitoring and satellite-based remote sensing are making whale presence and ecosystem pressures increasingly visible to financiers, at a fraction of traditional survey costs. Existing datasets, such as WWF’s Protecting Blue Corridors can already inform pricing and risk assessment for marine insurers, port authorities and fleet operators.
Industry actors are already responding: Swiss Re and Lloyd’s syndicates have identified deep-sea mining-related acoustic exposure as an emerging underwriting risk. The Baltic and International Maritime Council’s slow-steaming clauses show that reducing vessel speeds below 10 knots can cut fuel consumption by up to 50–60% while significantly lowering the risk of ship strikes, a tangible quick win that aligns climate, biodiversity and commercial outcomes.
Transition: governance and modelling over the next decade
Over the medium term, governance frameworks and risk models must evolve. The High Seas Treaty establishes the legal foundation for area-based management beyond national jurisdiction, creating new expectations for how ocean risks are governed and financed. At the same time, climate-driven habitat shifts will reshape ocean risk. Modelling suggests that by 2100, more than half of summer foraging habitat for bowhead whales could be lost, with up to three-quarters disappearing under high-emissions scenarios. These projections have direct implications for Arctic shipping routes, insurance pools, sovereign risk assessments and Indigenous co-management frameworks. Long-term investors—sovereign wealth funds, family offices and mission-aligned endowments—are particularly well placed to integrate these extended time horizons into capital allocation decisions.
Transformation: a paradigm shift in value and responsibility
A deeper shift is also underway. Advances in marine science, particularly in acoustic monitoring, are reshaping how we understand whales: not simply as conservation units, but as sentient, communicative and culturally complex beings. At the same time, rights-of-nature frameworks are gaining traction globally, from the Whanganui River in Aotearoa New Zealand to legal recognitions in Ecuador, Colombia and Spain’s Mar Menor.[3] In this context, impacts such as ship strikes are increasingly framed not just as externalities, but as potential legal liabilities. Overlaying this is a generational shift in capital. The largest intergenerational wealth transfer in history is underway, and its beneficiaries are less likely to accept purely extractive relationships with ocean ecosystems.
A live opportunity: One Ocean Finance
UNEP FI is working with banks, insurers and investors to co-design One Ocean Finance, a vehicle intended to mobilize and redirect capital towards a sustainable, equitable and resilient ocean economy. Port infrastructure and shipping finance are among the initial focal areas, where the lessons of the whaling moratorium are most directly applicable: the choices made about how vessels and infrastructure are financed, insured and routed will determine whether the coming decades entrench industrial overlap or enable ocean recovery.
We invite financial institutions to take part in this consultation through a survey on finance sector priorities. To engage directly in the co-design process, please contact Jan Raes.
[1] Climate Bonds Initiative (2024) Sustainable Debt Global State of the Market 2024. Available at: https://www.climatebonds.net/files/documents/publications/Climate-Bonds_Sustainable_Debt_2024_Global-State-of-the-Market_24-Sep-2025.pdf
[2] Climate Bonds Initiative (2025) Sustainable Debt Global State of the Market 2025. Available at: https://www.climatebonds.net/data-insights/publications/sustainable-debt-global-state-market-2025
[3] International Energy Agency (2024). Recycling of Critical Minerals. Strategies to scale up recycling and urban mining. A World Energy Outlook Special Report. iea.org/reports/recycling-of-critical-minerals