Principles to develop investable high-quality blue carbon projects to ensure positive outcomes for people, nature, and climate have been launched at COP27. The final ‘High-Quality Blue Carbon Principles and Guidance’ issued by a global coalition of ocean leaders is a first-of-a-kind framework to steer the development and purchasing of high-quality blue carbon projects and credits. The framework’s development was driven collaboratively by Salesforce, Conservation International, The Nature Conservancy, the Ocean Risk and Resilience Action Alliance (ORRAA), Friends of Ocean Action/Ocean Action Agenda at the World Economic Forum, and the Meridian Institute. The five principles are safeguarding nature, empowering people, employing the best information and carbon accounting principles, operate contextually and locally and mobilising high integrity capital. Karen Sack, ORRAA’s Executive Director, said: “Our hope is that governments, investors, buyers and sellers will adopt these high-quality principles and guidelines as the foundation for their engagement in this marketplace so that we see a race to the top for blue carbon investments that benefits communities, businesses and nature.”
