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The Blue Technology Barometer is a ranking of 66 coastal countries and territories on their progress and commitment toward protecting ocean sustainability. It measures the degree to which economies are prioritizing the protection of ocean health, through sustainable marine activity, blue innovation, and policy implementation.
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The overall rankings tab shows the performance of the examined economies relative to each other and aggregates scores generated across the following four pillars: ocean environment, marine activity, technology innovation, and policy and regulation.
This pillar ranks each country according to its levels of marine water contamination, its plastic recycling efforts, the CO2 emissions of its marine activities (relative to the size of its economy), and the recent change of total emissions.
This pillar ranks each country on the sustainability of its marine activities, including shipping, fishing, and protected areas.
This pillar ranks each country on its contribution to ocean sustainable technology research and development, including expenditure, patents, and startups.
This pillar ranks each country on its stance on ocean sustainability-related policy and regulation, including national-level policies, taxes, fees, and subsidies, and the implementation of international marine law.
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Now in its second year, the Blue Technology Barometer assesses and ranks how each of the world’s largest maritime economies promotes and develops blue (marine-centered) technologies that help reverse the impact of climate change on ocean ecosystems, and how they leverage ocean-based resources to reduce greenhouse gases and other effects of climate change.
To build the index, MIT Technology Review Insights compiled 20 quantitative and qualitative data indicators for 66 countries and territories with coastlines and maritime economies. This included analysis of select datasets and primary research interviews with global blue technology innovators, policymakers, and international ocean sustainability organizations. Through trend analysis, research, and a consultative peer-review process with several subject matter experts, weighting assumptions were assigned to determine the relative importance of each indicator’s influence on a country’s blue technology leadership.
These indicators measure how each country or territory’s economic and maritime industries have affected its marine environment and how quickly they have developed and deployed technologies that help improve ocean health outcomes. Policy and regulatory adherence factors were considered, particularly the observance of international treaties on fishing and marine protection laws.
The indicators are organized into four pillars, which evaluate metrics around a sustainability theme. Each indicator is scored from 1 to 10 (10 being the best performance) and is weighted for its contribution to its respective pillar. Each pillar is weighted to determine its importance in the overall score. As these research efforts center on countries developing blue technology to promote ocean health, the technology pillar is ranked highest, at 50% of the overall score.
The four pillars of the Blue Technology Barometer are:
Carbon emissions resulting from maritime activities and their relative growth. Metrics in this pillar also assess each country’s efforts to mitigate ocean pollution and enhance ocean ecosystem health.
Efforts to promote sustainable fishing activities and increase and maintain marine protected areas.
Progress in fostering the development of sustainable ocean technologies across several relevant fields:
Commitment to signing and enforcing international treaties to promote ocean sustainability and enforce sustainable fishing.
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