The Instruments
The Ørsted Blue Bond
In 2023, the world's largest offshore wind company became the first energy firm to issue a blue bond. What the money actually funded says something about where corporate blue finance is heading.
Brian Rogers
Three decades in Canadian financial services, most recently as Chief Risk Officer in the credit union sector. Founded Blue Finance Canada to examine how financial decisions reach the ocean. CFA, MBA, ICD.D.
A Path Forward
Applying Blue Finance: A Note for Leaders in Financial Institutions
The inputs into lending decisions are changing. They show up in insurance markets, in asset performance, and in the durability of business models. The structures needed to respond are already in place.
The Instruments
The Seychelles Blue Bond
In 2018 one of the world's smallest countries borrowed fifteen million dollars and, in doing so, showed the world what a blue bond could be. The money was small. What Seychelles attached to it, in conditions, reporting, and marine protection, was the part worth studying.
The Rules
Antarctica
Antarctica has no owner, no permanent population, and limited economic activity. It has been governed cooperatively for more than sixty years. That turns out to be a useful reference point for the ocean.
The Rules
The High Seas Treaty
After nearly two decades of talks, the first treaty governing biodiversity on the high seas became law in January 2026. It reaches almost half the planet, and Canada has to account for it.
Stressors
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is not the solid island of trash it is usually pictured as. What it actually is, and how it forms, says a lot about how materials move through the ocean.
Where Things Stand
Canada’s Role in the Development of Blue Finance
Canada invented the financing model the conservation world now copies, and committed real money to its oceans. It is also missing its own marine targets. The gap between the two is the most useful thing its record shows.
The Basics
The Origins of Blue Finance
No one set out to invent blue finance. It is the name we gave to something that had already been happening for years, as people working on fisheries, coastlines, development lending, and ocean science slowly realized they were circling the same problem.
The Basics
What Good Looks Like in Blue Finance
New instruments and funding models get most of the attention. The harder question is whether financial decisions actually stay connected to the systems they affect.
The Basics
The Core Concepts Behind Blue Finance
Every financial decision lands somewhere real, and for a large part of Canada's economy, that somewhere is the ocean. Three ideas explain how capital and ocean systems connect, and what blue finance does about it.
Where Things Stand
Canada's Sovereign Wealth Fund and Blue Finance
Canada is building its first sovereign wealth fund. The fund wasn't designed with oceans in mind, but the gap it could fill is exactly where blue finance has been stuck for years.
Blue Currents
April 2026
A monthly update on how finance is evolving to support ocean stewardship in Canada.