Project Description
In addition to their core business, Blue Economy industries have a range of responsibilities to the environment and the community. Meeting these responsibilities requires having a clear understanding of the values applicable to the Blue Economy and the ethical risks and opportunities these values create. This project identified a need to provide industry operators, and other stakeholders, with more robust ethical guidance in order to better navigate the tension between benefits and risks in this complex space. Industry also required greater conceptual and practical knowledge of important mechanisms—such as ‘social licence to operate’ and ‘integrity systems’—that impact the implementation of ethical values.
This project delivered accessible, practical guidance on:
Key Blue Economy Values and Principles
Blue Economy Governance and Integrity Systems
Ethical Risks in the Offshore Blue Economy
Understanding the Social License to Operate
Project Personnel and Beneficiaries
The project benefits a range of marine economy stakeholders, helping guide policy and decision-making on aquaculture and offshore renewable energy industries.
Outcomes to Date
This research is assisting practitioners in:
• guiding operations to better achieve benefits while avoiding ethical traps
• informing government policy, law and regulation
• helping justify and explain decisions and actions
• shaping expectations, ensuring that government, industry and community have shared standards.
This research on the Blue Economy has broad applicability across Australia’s marine economy, including to its developing offshore renewables industry. Lessons learned provide the opportunity to integrate ethical decision making, robust integrity systems and authentic social licence to operate practices into this emerging industry. The ethics research developed on this project is informing ongoing research into social license and ethical values in Australia’s offshore wind industry and its consideration of offshore wave energy.
Project Significance
As industries move further offshore, the Blue Economy can deliver many benefits through SDG14. But ethical concerns about its operations can threaten its social licence to operate. To ensure their legitimacy and sustainability, Blue Economy industries need to consider, prioritise and implement the values justifying their operations to the communities in which they operate.
Helping fill this need, this project produced a world-first account of the ethical values at stake in the Blue Economy. It provided key outputs that help industry partners inform funders, Boards and communities to secure the social licence to operate in new environments. This is vital if SDG14 is to be achieved successfully, sustainably and equitably.