Who Sets the Rules in Blue Finance?

Blue finance does not have a single governing body or a definitive rulebook. It has a set of institutions, each approaching the field from a different starting point, producing frameworks that overlap in some areas and diverge in others. Understanding who is writing the rules, and why they are writing them the way they are, makes the field considerably easier to navigate.

The United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative, commonly known as UNEP FI, approaches blue finance as a standard-setting body for the financial sector. Its Sustainable Blue Economy Finance Principles run to fourteen points covering ecological protection, legal compliance, risk awareness, transparency, precaution, and science-led decision-making among others. The framework is broad and normative. It is designed to establish shared expectations across financial institutions rather than to guide any specific transaction. If you are looking for a statement of values and orientation for the field, this is the closest thing to a canonical document that exists.

The World Bank approaches the same territory as a development finance practitioner. Its definition of blue finance centres on financial tools that channel capital toward the sustainable use and protection of marine ecosystems. The emphasis is on instruments, what they are, how they work, and where they can be applied. The World Bank's guidance is more operational than UNEP FI's, reflecting the fact that it is in the business of structuring and executing transactions rather than setting market norms.

The International Capital Market Association takes a narrower and more market-focused position. In its guidance, blue bonds are not treated as a distinct bond class with their own standalone principles. They are green bonds, provided they follow the Green Bond Principles, applied to ocean-related uses of proceeds. That is a deliberately modest claim. ICMA is less interested in ocean philosophy than in market integrity, disclosure, and maintaining a common architecture across thematic labels. It is also, as a result, the clearest voice on what a blue bond actually guarantees in market terms: a use-of-proceeds commitment, a selection process, management of funds, and impact reporting. Nothing more and nothing less.

The OECD frames the problem differently again. Rather than defining blue finance instruments or setting financial-sector principles, it focuses on how to finance a sustainable ocean economy across four goals: economic development and resilience, equity, healthy ecosystems, and climate action. This shifts attention from individual transactions to system-level questions about governance coherence, the role of public finance, and how financing instruments need to be matched to country context. The OECD is asking a bigger and slower question than the others.

What these institutions agree on is more important than where they differ. Blue finance is meant to be linked to the actual condition of marine systems, not merely to economic activity that happens to take place near the coast. It is supposed to connect financial flows with sustainability outcomes rather than simply sector growth. And it requires some form of governance, safeguards, and reporting beyond what ordinary project finance demands. A project that meets minimum legal requirements, cannot demonstrate measurable contribution to ocean outcomes, or lacks credible environmental and social safeguards does not qualify as blue finance under any of these frameworks, regardless of what it is called.

Where they differ is on scope and emphasis. Whether freshwater and wastewater count as blue finance depends on which framework you are reading. Whether shipping and port infrastructure qualify automatically or only under strict sustainability screens is handled differently across institutions. And whether blue finance should be treated as a distinct market or as an ocean-themed subset of green finance remains genuinely unsettled. ICMA's answer leans toward the latter. UNEP FI's leans toward the former.

For practitioners, the practical implication is that blue finance is a field being built simultaneously from multiple directions by institutions with different mandates and different audiences. That is not a weakness. It reflects the fact that directing capital toward ocean outcomes requires coordination across financial markets, development institutions, policy frameworks, and scientific understanding. No single body can set rules that work across all of those domains at once.

What exists instead is a growing body of shared principles, tested instruments, and case experience that practitioners can draw on as the field continues to develop.