Credit Suisse will manage the “blue economy” bond to increase investment in oceans and coastal areas.

As climate change dominates, the World Bank has partnered with Credit Suisse to issue a $28.6 million 5-year Sustainable Development Bond to focus the role water conservation, oceans and waterways play in healthy global development. Credit Suisse will exclusively manage the bond, which is part of its low-carbon “blue economy” offering to private wealth management clients.

In a reminder of why Earth is known as the blue planet, the bank noted that oceans are significantly underfunded by private capital even though they absorb around 30 per cent of the carbon dioxide and generate half the world's oxygen.

Such bond measures help "support projects from sustainable fisheries to marine-protected areas to ocean-waste upcycling and helps us close the funding gap identified by the Sustainable Development Goal 14, 'life below water'", said Marisa Drew, CEO of the impact advisory and finance department at Credit Suisse.

The World Bank issues around $60 billion into global capital markets every year, with bonds proceeds going towards funding programmes aligned with the SDGS. Among active projects are improving flood management in the Philippines; preserving fish stocks and livelihoods in Peru; and improving marine management in the Seychelles.