Restoring the UK’s seagrass meadows
Turning a threatened habitat into an asset
Nurturing natural resources to fight climate change
Seagrass meadows, in particular environments and under the right conditions, have the potential to play a significant role in our journey to net-zero.
To realise this potential, restoration is critical.
Since the 19th century, a third of seagrass meadows have disappeared, threatening biodiversity, coastlines, communities and wider net-zero efforts.
Working together with Climate Impact Partners, Project Seagrass and the UK’s National Oceanography Centre, Deloitte is taking action to protect and enhance them.
Together, we’re working toward the UK’s first Seagrass Carbon Code, a scientific standard that will enable a financial framework to make seagrass restoration a credible, investable solution that can be scaled internationally.
The project is part of Deloitte’s Beyond Value Chain Mitigation (BVCM) strategy, through which we’re looking beyond our own environmental footprint, using our skills, influence and focused investment to help speed up environmental progress.
Healthy seagrass meadows can act as long-term carbon sinks
When flourishing and undisturbed, seagrass meadows can lock away vast amounts of carbon for, potentially, thousands of years.
Seagrass meadows are also crucial to human sustenance, supporting fisheries that provide food for three billion people and contributing half the animal protein consumed by 400 million of us.
“Seagrass meadows are the powerhouses of coastal seas, providing a nature-based solution to climate change,” says Dr Claire Evans, biogeochemist at the UK’s National Oceanography Centre.
“They have been neglected for decades, which has led to their large-scale degradation and loss.”
When these meadows disappear, stored carbon is released into the atmosphere and important ecosystems are decimated.
The UK is already one of the most biodiversity-depleted countries on earth, so to preserve these underwater wonders, we need to act now. It requires bold, innovative solutions and sizeable long-term investment.
“We need to protect and restore seagrass while supporting sustainable human activities that occur among, or depend directly upon, seagrass ecosystems.”
Dr Leanne Cullen-Unsworth, CEO and Co-Founder, Project Seagrass
Turning the tide on recovery
Despite their significance, seagrass projects have struggled to attract support. In fact, Life Below Water is the least-financed UN Sustainable Development Goal.
This collaboration aims to change that. Deloitte’s investment is funding research across UK seagrass meadows, mapping the ecosystems and developing new restoration techniques that involve local communities. It will also generate data on carbon sequestration rates of seagrass.
Pro bono support from Deloitte practitioners has established seagrass-specific data quality standards aligned with best practices, laying the foundation of a tailored seagrass data assessment framework. It also provided a web enhancement strategy for a global citizen science platform to enhance data collection, consolidation and accessibility, inspiring people to connect with seagrass.
This all supports the potential for a robust carbon credit scheme that also assists biodiversity and coastal resilience, making seagrass preservation a more viable future investment option for companies committed to sustainability.
Having the science and financial mechanisms in place can unlock long-term backing from the private sector, reversing the current shortfall. This also has the potential to shape future conservation and restoration strategies, influence policy and turn blue carbon ambitions (where carbon captured from the atmosphere is stored in marine and coastal ecosystems) into a reality.
The project has been recognised by the sector in its shortlisting for two awards: the 2025 edie Awards for Partnership & Collaboration of the Year and the 2025 UK Business Green Awards for Nature-based Project of the Year.
From seabed to global stage
This work underlines the importance of Deloitte’s BVCM strategy – accelerating environmental progress beyond our footprint through investment, innovation and collaboration.
Guidance from the Science-Based Targets initiative (SBTi) on BVCM helps companies tackle emissions outside of their own operations to support global net-zero goals.
“Reaching net-zero will require the global economy to decarbonise as part of a connected system,” says Smruti Naik-Jones, chief sustainability officer of Deloitte UK and North and South Europe.
“This incredible seagrass programme enables us to learn more about these marine ecosystems, fund critical research and help scale investment to unlock a powerful tool in tackling climate change.”
We’re contributing pro bono support along with investment to catalyse environmental and social impact across the energy transition, circularity, sustainable food systems and nature restoration.
Developing the UK’s first Seagrass Carbon Code will lay the foundation for measuring, valuing and repairing marine ecosystems at scale, and we’re proud to be involved.
With Project Seagrass, volunteers from Deloitte and Climate Impact Partners have also helped harvest seedlings from a healthy meadow as part of crucial recovery efforts.
It’s hoped that all of this will finally break down the barriers that have hindered restoration.
By shifting how we think about, invest in and prioritise ocean-based solutions, it has the potential to take us from pledges to tangible net-zero performance.
“Deloitte is demonstrating true climate leadership through this programme.
This is the kind of forward-thinking approach we need to see from more corporates as they map out routes to net-zero.”
Sheri Hickok, CEO, Climate Impact Partners
