Sustainable blue economy

Fruitful get together around Sustainable Blue Economy in Brussels

Organisers: Blue Cluster together with The Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food quality (the Netherlands) and the Dutch Netherlands Enterprise Agency

As part of the eMSP NBSR project we are building a Community around sustainable blue economy (SBE) learning strand: what does SBE stand for and how can it happen? The so-called Community of Practice, geographically from North Sea and Baltic Sea states, gathered in Brussels on 22 March for intensive discussions and interactions.

The new approach to the Sustainable Blue Economy is the blue pillar to the EU Green Deal. Although it is clear that a lot of progress has been made in recent years, the blue economy remains an emerging sector. We mapped that interest of investors is increasing, however trust is limited, mainly due to a lack of data and the economies of scale, and because risk / return is unknown. At the moment, this is one of the biggest challenges for the industry. Marine spatial planning will play an important role in getting the transformation going, and getting SBE from theory into practice.

By working together with sectoral experts and stakeholders, we will be able to establish an understanding of how MSP effects the maritime developments.

A very specific idea that was discussed within the Community of Practice is to develop so called “mariparks”, which can be seen as sustainable nature-inclusive maritime business areas. Within such an area large scale experiments are supported to conduct their tests, the main infrastructure is standardized, sensors collect data that can be used for impact assessments and help in understanding the effects of scaling up multi-use.

This community will continue to collaborate on Sustainable Blue Economy the coming months and years.

An impression of the CoP-Meeting can be found in this video.

This Community of Practice (CoP) is organized as part of the eMSP NSBR project (emerging ecosystem-based maritime spatial planning topics in the North and Baltic Sea Regions) and focuses on the learning strand ‘sustainable blue economy’. We invite several experts from the North Sea and Baltic Sea regions to develop a strong community around the development of sustainable blue economy and marine spatial planning as a potential driver.