Environmental impact with clear commercial pull

Our circularity domain targets the root causes of ocean degradation: pollution, biodiversity loss, carbon emissions, and the extraction of finite materials.

In 2025, the category continued shifting from a pure impact narrative to one around market infrastructure, with stronger customer demand for things such as sustainable materials as costs continue to come down.

This shift also includes increased interest in carbon removal as regulations come into force, biodiversity measurement as offshore infrastructure projects with strict regulatory frameworks proliferate, ecosystem restoration as the economic benefits of natural capital assets become easier to quantify, and plastic pollution solutions as consumers become increasingly aware of the pervasiveness of these materials in the world around them. With this as the backdrop, companies in this space are becoming increasingly relevant to corporates and governments looking to meet climate, nature, and circularity commitments with measurable outcomes.

The strongest opportunities here combine environmental impact with clear commercial pull. Biomaterials can replace fossil-based plastics and toxic inputs in packaging, textiles, coatings, and consumer goods. Blue carbon and mCDR can unlock new carbon markets if MRV standards mature. Natural capital restoration can turn coral reefs, mangroves, wetlands, and seagrass into investable resilience assets. And plastic pollution solutions are increasingly supported by regulation, EPR schemes, and customer demand for traceability and circular supply chains.

Biomaterials

Sustainable biomaterials gained clearer commercial traction in 2025 as corporates searched for replacements for fossil-derived plastics, coatings, textiles, and foams. Algae-based polymers, mycelium materials, bio-based coatings, and seaweed-derived packaging are moving through pilots with consumer goods, beauty, packaging, and fashion players. The strongest companies are differentiated by performance, cost-down pathways, feedstock security, and end-of-life behavior - especially marine biodegradability, compostability, and integration into existing manufacturing lines.

Blue Carbon & mCDR

Blue carbon and marine carbon removal saw stronger buyer signals in 2025, but also growing scrutiny around MRV and ecological risk. Demand for durable carbon removal is growing, and ocean-based pathways such as ocean alkalinity enhancement, electrochemical capture, kelp-based systems, and coastal ecosystem restoration are attracting buyers and early project finance. Most notably on this front, Frontier buyers signed a $31.3M offtake with Planetary in 2025 to remove 115,211 tonnes of CO₂ via ocean alkalinity enhancement between 2026 and 2030, implying ~$270/t. However, scientific reviews continue to stress that mCDR remains early-stage and requires much stronger evidence on ocean chemistry, permanence, and environmental impacts before large-scale deployment.

Natural Capital Asset Restoration

Natural capital restoration became more investable in 2025 as marine ecosystems were increasingly framed as resilience infrastructure. Seagrass, mangrove, coral, wetland, and reef restoration are increasingly being tied to biodiversity credits, blue carbon, coastal protection, fisheries productivity, and insurance value. Development finance institutions are also increasingly recognizing the economic value of healthy ocean systems, with entities such as The Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean doubling its oceans commitment to $2.5B for 2025–2030, and including the restoration of damaged ocean ecosystems in this allocation. Startups in the space are combining restoration methods with sensing, AI, biodiversity accounting, and credit models to quantify coastal protection, carbon sequestration, fish biomass, and ecosystem service gains. The category nevertheless remains early, but demand seems to be growing for measurable, financeable resilience assets.

Plastic Pollution Solutions

Plastic pollution solutions received a major public-finance signal in 2025, as a coalition of development banks committed at least €3B by 2030 through the Clean Oceans Initiative’s second phase, after deploying €4B from 2018 to May 2025. The focus is expanding from downstream cleanup to upstream prevention, including packaging alternatives, wastewater and stormwater infrastructure, recycling, and microplastic reduction. Innovations are spreading across detection, collection, microplastic filtration, advanced recycling, enzymatic depolymerization, and on-site upcycling, with the strongest solutions either integrating easily into existing waste infrastructure or creating valuable outputs from difficult waste streams. While the continued failure to finalize a global plastics treaty remains a headwind, EPR schemes, plastic taxes, increased consumer awareness around microplastics, and corporate packaging targets have kept customer pressure high.

This article is based on the market overview in Katapult Ocean’s 2025 Impact Report.

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