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The idea of trends and ‘fads’ really interests me—who starts them, who the target market is and why, and why people are so quick to jump on the bandwagon. The first real trend that confused me was a simple term that people used differently from its actual meaning, the word ‘true’. In grade 10 I moved from Vancouver to Toronto with my family and on my first day of school I heard everyone using the word ‘true’ in a casual and (to me) incorrect way. They used the word as an agreeable, instead of saying ‘yes’, ‘I agree’ or ‘totally’. I never knew or understood it but eventually, I too started to add it to my vocabulary.
I bring this up because there is a new buzzword being thrown around which is not a new concept or practice, but it is the next big thing to get involved in: “The Blue Economy”. This, unlike my high school lingo, is much higher level and discussed on an international, federal and provincial way. The World Bank (2020) defines the Blue Economy as the development of any oceanic economic activity used in an integrated and sustainable way and strives to maximize socio-economic benefits to coastal communities. Right away, one can remark about how wonderful or amazing this new idea sounds but in reality, we have always had an ocean economy… so what’s new?
Upon further research I began to discover all of the extractive and destructive industries that fall under the Blue Economy (oil and gas, seabed mining, etc.). Trends such as these can often fall prey to green washing—conveying your activity or business as more environmental than it is. Complete transparency is difficult to achieve with trends unless there are standards, certifications, policies and regulations that uphold the essence of the concept.
In Canada, we are creating a Blue Economy Strategy which will focus primarily on developing the seafood industry. It is projected that global seafood consumption will increase 60% by 2030 and as an ocean nation there is a lot of potential for us to benefit from increasing our seafood farming and production. However, the concern remains: will polices be developed to ensure that our “Blue Economy” industries are sustainably focused rather than economically driven? It will be interesting to see how that strategy unfolds and what we choose to focus on.
