Red Lines in the Abyss

A growing number of banks, insurers, asset managers and public financial institutions are distancing themselves from deep-sea mining. A new report from the Deep Sea Mining Campaign (DSMC) and Seas At Risk finds that financial markets are increasingly treating deep-sea mining as a high-risk industry with significant environmental, regulatory, economic and reputational concerns.

The report — Red Lines in the Abyss: Growing Financier Concern Over Deep-Sea Mining — provides the first comprehensive mapping of financial institutions that have adopted policies restricting or opposing deep-sea mining. 

Key findings

• 82 financial institutions have adopted policies excluding, restricting or expressing concern about deep-sea mining.

• These institutions represent approximately €24 trillion in combined assets under management.

• 39 institutions have explicit policies that exclude or place conditions on financing deep-sea mining activities.

• Nearly half of these exclusion policies were adopted within the past 12 months, indicating rapidly growing momentum in the financial sector.