Target 14.5: Conserve 10 percent of coastal and marine areas
By 2020, conserve at least 10 per cent of coastal and marine areas, consistent with national and international law and based on the best available scientific information
Owners voting their values help. Others must carry most of it.
Why shareholder democracy is helpful
Designating and enforcing marine protected areas is a sovereign act, but industry opposition is a documented brake. InfluenceMap's 2025 report identifies the West Coast Seafood Processors Association, National Fisheries Institute and Europeche as the most oppositional associations. The same report notes Europeche calling the 30x30 target 'unrealistic and very harmful' and names Pacific Seafood and Cooke the most oppositional companies. Owners of seafood, offshore energy and mining shares can press companies to stop lobbying against protected areas and to support a deep-sea mining moratorium. Sixty-four companies and financial institutions already support one. The core action is governmental, so owners help at the margin, though at the upper end of the margin.
How this was scoredHelpful
Helpful. Owners voting their values help. Others must carry most of it.
We have not yet written down the two answers behind this rating. Recording them on every item, so a reader can check the reasoning and not only the conclusion, is work in progress.
Every rating is the higher of two answers, one for what companies do and one for what they spend to stop the outcome, because the same vote reaches both. See the full method.
Sources
What civil society organizations are helping owners on this
Filed the first shareholder proposals asking automakers to disclose deep-sea mineral sourcing policies and to adopt a moratorium on battery metals from deep sea ecosystems.
General Motors Shareholders Support First-Ever Deep-Sea Mining Proposal, As You Sow, 2024-06
Signed a collective statement of financial institutions to governments on deep seabed mining and began engaging two portfolio companies involved in seabed mining pilots.
1 campaign on record
Postpone approval of seabed dredging permits until the environmental, social and economic risks of deep sea mining are fully understood.
Result: Signed by 36 financial institutions
Robeco chose engagement over exclusion and said it would start engaging two portfolio companies involved in seabed mining pilots.
How this rating was made
Every item on every one of our maps is read against one question: how far does this depend on the people who own companies voting their values? We answer it twice, once for what companies do and once for what they spend to stop the outcome, and take whichever answer is higher, since the same vote reaches both. The score carries its reasoning and its sources so that a reader can check it rather than take it.
- Pivotal. Owners voting their values can deliver most of the outcome.
- Necessary. Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes, and others must also act.
- Helpful. Owners voting their values help, and others carry most of it.
- Independent. This moves without owners. Other levers carry it.
The advocacy record on this page holds only what a source we opened says happened. Where we searched and found nothing, the page says so rather than leaving a silence. Where a campaign names a filer the source does not name, it says that too. Ratings are ours; the list of subjects is UN Sustainable Development Goals's, and we link to their original.
How we score dependency, in full.