What if your marine minerals could unlock genuine sustainable development – *without* needing to mine them?
How do you know that when we say “Own Your Ocean” or “Exploration-as-a-Service” – we actually mean it?
Perhaps, it is because when it feels like it would make more economic sense to conserve your resources – we will make the case for it!
Barcelona, April 2024
Canvassing outside the UN Ocean Decade Conference was the launch for M-Cubed Research Consulting, and what would become Own Your Ocean – after two days, I walked away with a sore sunburn and a realisation
We are not doing enough to incentivise conservation – or non-proliferation for marine mining – nobody is.
This spring I asked Leticia Carvalho, Secretary-General of the International Seabed Authority how we can incentivise developing countries to conserve their seabed minerals: “We would expect them to comply…” – is not the start of the answer I had hoped for.
Decoupling Data from Destruction
Our key differentiator, is that we break the link between exploration and exploitation. We are not a mining company. As we don’t profit from the extraction of minerals, we have been forced to ask a deeper question: how can we use independent exploration to provide maximum value to developing countries?
The answer is found in a brutal macroeconomic reality:
sovereign debt and inflation.
Developing Countries are trapped in a debt crisis. Combined external debt hit $11.4 trillion in 2023 – and governments are forced to prioritise interest repayments over national development (UNCTAD, 2025). High inflation and skyrocketing interest rates choke these economies – pain points driven entirely by perceived risk and a lack of high-value collateral.
Exploration-as-a-Service flips the script. By mapping, predicting, and defining your marine resource reserves before signing any mining leases, the host country retains 100% ownership of the data and the asset.
This comprehensive data package does something revolutionary: it transforms an abstract underwater resource into tangible, de-risked sovereign collateral.
Instead of being forced to dig it up, developing nations can use this verified resource wealth to:
- Securitize Conservation: Back high-value blue bonds or conservation credits, getting paid by global markets not to exploit (think of the Tropical Forest Forever Facility)
- Reduce Borrowing Costs: Use the asset data to lower national risk profiles, combatting domestic inflation and restructuring predatory debt from a position of absolute data symmetry.
Mining companies force you to commoditise – this model invites you to collateralise and conserve.
By using independent data to minimise interest payments on sovereign debt, developing nations can use the immediate financial savings to fund genuine, sustainable domestic development.
M-Cubed Research Consulting 