Abstract

The term blue economy has emerged as a key driver of economic development based on the use of ocean space and resources since the 2012 UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) (Silver et al., 2015). While there is no universal definition for what blue economy means, most definitions envision pairing economic growth with environmental sustainability, commodifying ocean resources and quantifying their use and non-use values in economic terms (Voyer et al., 2018). Critics have argued that blue economy discourse has therefore served to extend market economies into oceans, leading to ocean grabbing and private control of resources (Barbesgaard, 2018). These critics argue that “win-win” narratives surrounding the blue economy can frame it as non-political, masking inequitable impacts and precluding transformative change.

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