Blue economy is strongly becoming the new production model for building a sustainable future and, because of its environmental benefits, it is one of the areas of interest at La Lonja de la Innovación. We recently explained what this economical perspective was all about, today we want to expand on that knowledge by exploring the challenges and barriers currently presented by the blue economy.
Challenges and barriers of blue economy
As with any entrepreneurial project, there are challenges and barriers that blue economy must face in order to overcome them and be able to develop. This is largely a consequence of the lack of public awareness of its importance. For this situation to change, public awareness campaigns must be organized to help society to understand the importance and impact that blue economy can have in our lives, and in this way, achieve a bigger support. It is precisely this lack of knowledge that gives rise to another of the major barriers in this economic perspective: the difficulty of accessing financing because of the uncertainty that projects of this type generate.
On the other hand, blue economy faces other kinds of barriers such as overexploitation of marine resources, pollution and climatic change, factors which act as major threats. Furthermore, an ill-conceived blue economy, can lead to an unregulated exploitation of marine resources, which can lead to economic inequalities that benefit large corporations that generate these harmful impacts, when, on the contrary, what blue economy proposes is local trade and sustainability.
Another of the biggest barriers is that it is subject to numerous regulations and policies that vary depending on where the waters are located. The management and governance of oceans and seas is complex, as it can be shared between different entities and international organizations. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea acts as a legal framework and governance in this regard, and assigns to the different states exclusive economic zones, as well as delimiting the rest of the areas as global properties. Each state has jurisdiction when it comes to managing activities and actions on the waters, and the productive processes that revolve within blue economy must adjust to those normatives. By this way, entrepreneurs must have a good understanding of the regulations of the areas in which they are going to operate and establish collaboration with the competent authorities.
Finally, there are also challenges related to the resources needed to develop blue economy activities. Most of these projects require a high investment, since they work with advanced and specialized technologies and, sometimes they also have to build marine infrastructures such as offshore wind farms or aquaculture farms. Therefore, two problems are added: the difficulty in obtaining financing and the need to make a very high initial investment. Thus, it is not only the lack or difficulty of access to capital, but also to these technologies that prevents new players from entering the market.
After seeing all this, it is necessary to point out that it is not impossible to carry on blue economy projects. On the contrary, more and more companies are taking the plunge and venturing into this world. This is due to the fact that opportunities that blue economy offers are greater than the barriers or challenges. Nevertheless, like any other business, there will be obstacles along the way that must be overcome to achieve your objectives. If you are interested in developing your own blue economy project, don’t hesitate to contact La Lonja de la Innovación to get the impulse and support you need