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
1 campaign on record
Postpone approval of seabed dredging permits until the environmental, social and economic risks of deep sea mining are fully understood.
With Achmea, Achmea Investment Management, Aéma Groupe, Allianz France, Andra AP-fonden, AP3, ASR Nederland N.V., Australian Ethical Investment, Avesco Sustainable Finance AG, Aviva Plc, CZ Group, ERAFP, Federal Finance Gestion, Federated Hermes Limited, GLS Gemeinschaftsbank eG, Karner Blue Capital, La Banque Postale Group, La Financière de l'Echiquier, Mirova, Montpensier Finance, Nordea Asset Management, Oakham Wealth Management Ltd, Ossiam, Pictet Group, Rathbone Greenbank Investments, Schelcher Prince Gestion, Storebrand Asset Management, Swedbank Robur, Tribe Impact Capital, Triodos Bank, UBP Asset Management, WHEB Asset Management, Zencap Asset Management
Result: The Global Financial Institutions Statement to Governments on Deep Seabed Mining, coordinated by the Finance for Biodiversity Foundation, was released on 19 July 2023 ahead of the International Seabed Authority's Assembly meeting of 24 to 28 July 2023. Robeco was one of its signatories. The coordinator's announcement describes the signatories as 37 financial institutions with more than EUR 3.3 trillion in combined assets in its opening line, and as 36 institutions where it lists them by name; Robeco's own account also says 36. The statement stayed open for further signatories and had reached 40 institutions with more than EUR 3.8 trillion by July 2025.
Robeco chose engagement over exclusion: it holds shares in companies that may become indirectly involved in deep sea mining by providing services or finance to the direct miners, and said it would engage its two largest such holdings rather than exclude them. On the statement's own ask, the International Seabed Authority Assembly closed in July 2025 without adopting a mining code, which the Finance for Biodiversity Foundation described as effectively a pause on deep-seabed mining, and reaffirmed that mining cannot begin without clear regulation.
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.