Sustainable Blue Economy Investment Forum

"No healthy planet without a healthy ocean" (Peter Thomson) was the key word in last week's Sustainable Blue Economy Investment Forum. It was a pleasure to feel the dynamics and momentum around the sustainable ocean economy!

From the meetings I attended, I took three key insights:
- Everybody is talking about algae (my Korean mother-in-law would love to hear this)! Both as food, energy and material (replacing plastics) source, algae seem to be a key dimension in rethinking the ocean (and overall) economy - maybe one of the "next big things" to watch.
- Markus H.-P. Müller had a really good idea to add a National / Company stock accounting system on top of the GDP flow system we all know.
- And finally Fundação Oceano Azul's (mostly known for the Oceanário de Lisboa and its role in ocean's conservancy) President raised the point that Management Boards are required by Law to manage companies in a responsible and conservative manner - but that we don't see the same framework on Nature's relationship with firms and people.

Carbon Enterprise Value

This is a bit of a geeky post.

I recently heard of Carbon Enterprise Value, a methodology developed by Lime Rock New Energy on the subject of Green House Gases emissions avoidance - and I must say I was fascinated. The basic premise is that carbon emissions avoidance has a greater value (or are more important) the closer they are to the present day - meaning that, as you calculate now how much CO2 (or other GHG) a project avoids being put in the atmosphere, the future emissions are less important than the ones you avoid now. This makes sense (at least under some lenses), because of the inherent risk of any project.

Yes, the concept and calculations are quite similar to the basic (and always reliable) Discounted Cash Flow model used in Finance. So much so that Lime Rock New Energy uses the financial rate of DCF discounting on this new CEV concept - and here lies the biggest question mark of the model, as one may question if it makes sense to use a financial measure (that on itself is quite complex) to discount carbon emissions (a non-financial topic).

Still, the measure and approach seem incredibly valuable. It is a comparable, "easy" to calculate tool that can be used in any GHG emissions avoidance project - and can even be used as part of one's valuation, if you consider the market value of carbon emissions.

Did you know that every single time a website asks you to answer "Click on all the squares that have traffic lights" to prove you're human, you are actually training Artificial Intelligence to identify what traffic lights look like in the real world?