The blue economy and its importance today

According to the World Bank, the blue economy is the “sustainable use of ocean resources for economic growth, improved livelihoods and employment, while preserving ecosystem health”.
for economic growth, improved livelihoods and employment, while preserving ecosystem health”.

The European Commission defines it as “All economic activities related to the oceans, seas and coasts. It encompasses a wide range of established and emerging interconnected sectors”.

What is the blue economy?

The Commonwealth of Nations sees it as “an emerging concept that promotes better stewardship of our oceans or resources”.
stewardship of our ‘blue’ oceans or resources”.

The blue economy concept seeks to promote economic growth, social inclusion and the preservation or enhancement of livelihoods, while ensuring the environmental sustainability of oceans and coastal areas. It is also known as sustainable blue economy.

In essence, it refers to the decoupling of socio-economic development through ocean-related sectors and activities from environmental and ecosystem degradation. A major challenge of the Blue Economy is therefore to realise that sustainable management of ocean resources requires collaboration between nation-states and between the public and private sectors, on a global scale.

The principles of the Blue Economy.

• It is based primarily on solutions to basic laws of physics. Factors such as pressure, momentum.
• Replace “something” by “nothing”, each resource must be questioned and asked if it is really indispensable for its production.
• Change the idea of creating waste, every product can be the raw material for a new product. Nature, nutrients, energy or materials are always reused.
• Nature gives rise to entrepreneurs who do more with less. Nature opposes the aptitude for monopolisation.
• Gravity is the main resource we need for energy, the second renewable resource is solar energy.
• Water is the main soluble.
• Nature is subject to constant change.
• Sustainable economy respects natural resources, culture and tradition.
• Sustainable systems do not develop in linear processes.
• Everything that nature makes is degrading, it just takes time.
• In nature, air, water and soil are common goods, freely accessible and abundantly available.
• Nature is very efficient. That is why the sustainable economy makes the best use of available materials and energy, producing a low price for the consumer.
• In nature, disadvantages become advantages. Problems become opportunities.

What is the sustainable blue economy?

The sustainable blue economy is a holistic and innovative concept in the business approach: we only need to emulate natural ecosystems to be efficient in the production of goods and services that citizens need to be happy, with shared responsibility and respect for future generations.
The theory embodied in Pauli’s book “The Blue Economy” addresses a problem of major global proportions.
It aims to change the way we think about the environment, agriculture, manufacturing, waste, etc., in order to accentuate the circle of sustainable development with the planet. It proposes a way to redesign our whole way of living and to conduct it in the likeness of nature.
We must forget about pursuing a single profit. We want to get all that the production process has to offer. Specialisation, or economies of scale, do not work. It is about taking advantage, with an innovative attitude, of a multitude of sources of income throughout our production process.
In this way, we maintain risks and reduce costs. There is no point in trying to evaluate the by-product or eliminate the waste, they become business opportunities and need to be seized by entrepreneurs.

What is the difference between the blue economy and the green economy?

The green economy requires businesses to invest more and consumers to pay more to get the same in return for preserving the environment. The blue economy is about understanding waste as a resource and looking for solutions inspired by nature’s design.