ORRAA Member Meeting 2026: Putting Action at the Heart of our Alliance
ORRAA’s Third Member Meeting took place on June 24th at London Climate Action Week. This was a milestone moment on our journey to 2030, to drive collaboration across our 140+ member organisations, and build the solutions, initiatives, and partnerships that will help us achieve our collective Mission. We put action at the heart of our Alliance.
A snapshot in numbers:
| 200+ attendees | 16 speakers | 10 Action Agenda sessions |
Key Takeaways
We announced ORRAA’s latest impact numbers, showcasing the results that our Alliance has achieved over the last 4 years.
ORRAA’s new 2026 – 2028 Strategic Plan took centre stage, focused on doubling down to scale up ocean finance solutions. Our Action Agenda Breakout Sessions activated our members around the development of initiatives and finance products.
“This is about us taking pioneering action. Taking purposeful action. Taking personal action for the Ocean. And that is why we have ‘Action’ in the name of this Alliance.”
– Karen Sack, Executive Director of ORRAA.
We launched a new report, From Red Lines to Blue Lines, Redrawing How We Invest in a Regenerative Blue Economy published by ORRAA in collaboration with the WEF ACT Ocean and UNEP Finance Initiative. It provides clear guidance to financial institutions on how they can transition and align their investment portfolios towards a regenerative and sustainable ocean. The report includes a foreword by Pascal Lamy, Coordinator of the Institut Jacques Delors and former Director General of the WTO, Trevor Manuel, Chair of the Africa Expert Panel and former Finance Minister of South Africa, and Professor Andrés Velasco, Dean of the School of Public Policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science and former Finance Minister of Chile. They assert that “Future-proofing global prosperity requires understanding the planetary-financial systems nexus. A regenerative and sustainable blue economy offers a pathway to align these systems.”
The report also includes a scientific synthesis by the Stockholm Resilience Centre, Future Earth Secretariat and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research which, for the first time examines the intersection of Planetary Boundaries with the Ocean.
We also highlighted the UK Blue Planet Fund’s £2.2 million boost to the ORRAA Secretariat and six innovative finance and insurance projects designed to build coastal resilience. Having already established proven pilots, they will use the new funds to scale up their solutions, turning risk into resilience and opportunity.
Thank you to the incredible speakers that highlighted their perspectives from the beachfront to the boardroom and a heartfelt thank you to our Global Lead Banking Partner Deutsche Bank for hosting us at their new London headquarters. Particular thanks to Claudio de Sanctis, Fabrizio Campelli Joerg Eigendorf, Markus Müller and Salman Mahdi for the wonderful partnership on the Deutsche Bank x ORRAA Ocean Summit 2026, a #BackBlue Initiative event on Tuesday; and then for so kindly hosting our Member Meeting on Wednesday.
Thank you also to our amazing keynote speakers from three ORRAA Members: Nancy Iraba from Action for Ocean, President Whipps of Palau, and High Commissioner Karen-Mae Hill from Antigua and Barbuda.
“Trust unlocks credibility, credibility unlocks more funding, partnerships and opportunities.”
– Nancy Iraba, Co-founder and Technical Advisor, Action for Ocean (AFO)
“Today, we are in a new and troubling era of nervous navigation, the currents and the winds are particularly challenging…We all now need to be the wayfinders, to navigate our way back to security, stability and a better way of life.”
– President Surangel Whipps Jr., Republic of Palau
We are not just hapless victims of climate change, you’ll have heard this week that we are large ocean states, and when I hear that I think yes, we are, but what does it mean? Is it enough to say that you’re a large Ocean state? How do you actually unlock the benefits of that to be more resilient?
– High Commissioner Karen-Mae Hill, Antigua and Barbuda
What’s Next?
Our Member Meeting saw new collaborations being formed and vigorous discussions across our strategic Action Agenda Breakout Sessions. The Sessions focused on advancing solutions, sharing expertise from members, and aligning on partnerships to move these ideas forward. Over the coming months, ORRAA will consolidate the feedback from these sessions into Action Groups with members that will take this work forward to develop and deliver finance and insurance products to market that can activate finance at scale for coastal and Ocean resilience.
Topics covered included:
- Risk Pools as an Insurance Tool for Nature-based Solutions
- Leveraging Credits as an Ocean Finance Mechanism
- The Octopus Platform: Connecting an Investable Pipeline from Beachfront to Boardroom
- Actioning Regenerate 30×30: Scaling Finance in Local Contexts
- #BackBlue: From Red to Blue – Driving Capital into the Regenerative and Sustainable Blue Economy
- Building a High-Quality Blue Bond Market
- Financing a High-Quality Blue Carbon Market from Development to Scale
- Underwriting the Ocean: Financing a Living High Seas Treaty
- Outcomes-Based Finance for Ocean-Positive Investments
- #BackBlue: Central Arctic Ocean Shipping and Insurance
We are looking forward to working with all of our members through 2026 and beyond to carry these solutions forward, driving towards our mission, and accelerating action for a regenerating and sustainable Ocean.
Snapshots from the Member Meeting
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