Ocean Accounts

Ocean accounts are fundamentally about making visible the connections between human wellbeing, ecosystem health, and economic sustainability.

Ocean accounts organise social, economic and environmental information to enable coherent measurement of progress towards the sustainable development of the ocean, in line with the Sustainable Development Goals and other relevant national, regional and global commitments.

They are integrated records of regularly compiled and comparable data of:

• ocean environment assets (e.g., extent/condition of mangroves),
• economic activity (e.g., sale of fish),
• social conditions (e.g., coastal employment).

Ocean Accounts for Sustainable Development: Lessons from a Small Island State

Fiji Minister has a powerful call for why ocean accounts are critical for oceans, island states and their people

The Global Ocean Accounts PartnershipGOAP Secretariat

They retain a similar structure to existing national accounts maintained by National Statistical Offices or Finance Ministries and are compatible with the System of National Accounts, the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting, the Framework for Development of Environment Statistics and the ten Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics.

Ocean accounts integrate four key components:

• Macro-economic accounts from which economic measures such as GDP are derived, and from which legal, illegal, unreported, and unregulated activities can be accounted for.
• Environmental-economic accounts that explain assets and flows, wastes, expenditures, taxes, and subsidies.
• Ecosystem accounts which agree on a spatial framework or the extent, condition, biodiversity, services, and value of ecosystems.
• Structured data on ocean beneficiaries, technology, governance, and management.

Social Accounts

Background Ocean Accounts provide a structured compilation of consistent and comparable information (e.g. maps, data, statistics, and indicators) and measure progress across environmental, social and economic domains at regular accounting intervals. But, to date, there has been limited focus on Social Accounts and how they can be developed and

The Global Ocean Accounts PartnershipGOAP Secretariat

Why are ocean accounts important?

Ocean accounts provide countries with the means to go Beyond GDP to measure and manage progress towards ocean sustainable development. They achieve this by:

Enhancing the power of data by integrating multiple data sets from a range of sources to enable countries to monitor three critical trends:

• Changes in ocean wealth, including produced assets (e.g., ports) and non-produced assets (e.g., mangroves).
• Ocean-related income and welfare (e.g., income from fisheries for local communities).
• Ocean-based economic production (e.g., GDP from ocean-related sectors).

Creating a common information infrastructure to enable evidence-based decision-making on ocean governance matters (especially important because many ocean policy shortcomings arise from isolated information)
Including:

• Ocean policy development (e.g., Marine Spatial Planning) and the review of policy outcomes and their effectiveness.
• Assessing where (and where not) and how marine ecosystems perform better than conventional coastal infrastructure: e.g., when do mangroves or wetlands provide more benefits than concrete?​
• Activating private sector financing in the ocean economy and ecosystem restoration projects by providing investors with comparable and regularly updated project data to monitor progress, impact, and benefit.
• Understanding how growth and employment are underpinned by specific ecosystem conditions and functions:
  Invest $X to restore ocean to condition Y = Z benefits.

Supporting the derivation of comparable, Beyond GDP indicators. If a common accounting structure is used, these indicators can be integrated, and international comparisons made.

Providing the information and indicators needed for international reporting on the SDGs, the Paris Agreement, and other relevant commitments.

Organising and presenting information in manner that decision-makers can easily understand as dashboards, scenarios, spatial plans, and indicators.

Resources

Ocean Accounts Explained by Rekam Nusantara Foundation

Rekam Nusantara Foundation created this explainer video to build and share knowledge on ocean accounts, support mutual capacity growing within the global community of practice and facilitate the uptake of accounts in decision making. The video showcases the rich and diverse coastline of Indonesia while demonstrating the use of ocean

The Global Ocean Accounts PartnershipGOAP Secretariat

Policy Briefs

The GOAP Secretariat has prepared a series of policy briefs outlining how ocean accounts can be integrated into different frameworks and concepts to accelerate and support the transition to a sustainable ocean economy. Briefs available Coastal livelihoods Sustaining Coastal Livelihoods through Integrated Ocean AccountingSustaining Coastal Livelihoods through Integrated Ocean Accounting.

The Global Ocean Accounts PartnershipGOAP Secretariat

Ocean Accounts on the Global Agenda

The Pledge to Advance Ocean Accounts by 2030

Led by Costa Rica, the Pledge is open to countries and organisations that want to work together to strengthen the role of ocean accounting in governance.

The Global Ocean Accounts PartnershipGOAP Secretariat

Ha Long Consensus on Ocean Accounting for Sustainable Development in South and Southeast Asia

Reflecting consultations at the Regional Workshop on Ocean Accounting, Ha Long, Vietnam, 3-4 March 2025 View the Ha Long Consensus The Ha Long Consensus on Ocean Accounting for Sustainable Development in south and southeast Asia was agreed during the Regional Workshop held in Quang Ninh, Viet Nam on 3–4

The Global Ocean Accounts PartnershipGOAP Secretariat