Monitoring, Measuring, and Tracking Progress Towards Nature Positive for the Ocean

In June 2025, WWF published Towards nature positive for the ocean: pathways for corporate contributions to provide guidance for blue economy sectors, including offshore wind (OSW), coastal and marine tourism, shipping, and seafood (wild-capture fisheries and aquaculture) on actions they can take to credibly contribute to nature positive—the global goal to halt and reverse biodiversity loss. This follow-on report, Monitoring, measuring, and tracking progress towards nature positive for the ocean offers guidance for companies on how those recommended nature-positive ocean pathways can be measured, monitored and adapted over time.

Monitoring actions is a critical step to ensuring credible contributions by the private sector to the nature-positive global goal. This report provides practical guidance to companies in different ocean sectors on best practices for monitoring along with a set of recommended ecological indicators, synthesized from scientific literature and practitioner knowledge. Importantly, the report demonstrates the connections and alignment between the recommended indicators and other key initiatives such as the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD), and the Science Based Targets Network (SBTN), among others (e.g., ESRS, MSC, ASC, GDST).

By applying the recommendations in our reports on Action Pathways and this report on Monitoring & Indicators to nature strategies, companies can begin to make significant progress towards a prosperous and nature-positive future–aligned with the science and increasingly demanded by investors, regulators, communities, and civil society.