Limited reporting in the ocean

There is a move towards more corporate reporting of sustainability targets, but what they report is generally limited. Greenhouse gas emissions and energy use are the most common. Sometimes there are also references to sustainably sourced materials such as palm oil, cocoa, or cotton. There are many areas that impact ecosystem health that companies impact but there is little tracking and reporting. When they do report, the measures are inconsistent. This problem may be even more pronounced in growing oceanic industries.

Jouffray and colleagues (2025) examined the sustainability reports of 75 of the largest companies in 8 sectors of the ocean economy. The majority of companies focused on energy and greenhouse gas emissions. In addition, solid waste release was also recorded. There was very limited attention paid to other impacts. When they did, they used different measures, totalling 443 different indicators. This shows that there is little consensus on what should be measured and disclosed.

While there were some targets for reduced emissions and energy use, the other factors had few targets. Therefore, even when they were reported there was not a sense that the goal was to improve the impacts. This is problematic as issues like introduction of invasive species, biodiversity loss, and habitat destruction have significant impacts on ocean health.

Another key finding was that reporting differed between sectors even though in some cases at least there could be similar impacts or at least significant impacts. In addition, if a company includes both land-based and ocean-based operations, their reports rarely separated the impacts.

Without transparency it is difficult for consumers, including other businesses to make choices on which companies to support. Without consistency across reports it is difficult to identify cumulative impacts. Without information targets become more difficult to achieve.

Clearly, a lot of work needs to be done in this area. We have to move past the western thinking that the oceans are too big for us to impact and start unpacking, tracking, and reducing our impacts.