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POLICY AND PRACTICE REVIEWS article

Front. Mar. Sci.
Sec. Marine Affairs and Policy
Volume 11 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fmars.2024.1400043
This article is part of the Research Topic The Potentials and Pitfalls from National Blue Economy Plans Towards Sustainable Development View all 8 articles

Utilizing the SDGs to develop a Blue Economy Capacity Framework to enable a shift from an Ocean Economy to a Blue Economy in Canada

Provisionally accepted
Ronnie Noonan-Birch Ronnie Noonan-Birch 1*Michelle Adams Michelle Adams 2Marie-Chantal Ross Marie-Chantal Ross 3
  • 1 Pisces Research Project Management Inc., Halfax, Canada
  • 2 Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
  • 3 National Research Council Canada (NRC), Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Canada has committed to establishing a socially equitable, environmentally sustainable and economically viable blue economy but has not yet determined a sustainability standard that industry must meet to be included in this aspirational blue economy. For the blue economy to be an effective, sustainable alternative to the regular ocean economy, clear criteria for ocean business must be established to reduce the risk of blue washing. The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provide an ideal theoretical basis from which to develop a marine sector standard for blue economy industry. Using a criteria-based approach, this work selected relevant SDG targets that can guide Canada’s ocean industry in the transition to a blue economy. Through a stepwise process, the selected targets were further contextualized to the company level resulting in a blue economy capacity assessment framework (BECF) that offers four blue economy industry aims and associated enabling mechanisms. The BECF practically links the theory of the SDGs to a desired outcome, providing a method for an ocean-based company to assess its contribution to all three dimensions of Canada’s blue economy

    Keywords: blue economy, Canada, SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals), social equity, Ocean industry

    Received: 12 Mar 2024; Accepted: 11 Jul 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Noonan-Birch, Adams and Ross. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Ronnie Noonan-Birch, Pisces Research Project Management Inc., Halfax, Canada

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.