Coral Reef Restoration Enterprises

Abstract: Coral reefs are essential for providing ecosystem services to humans, including coastal protection, nutrition, and income opportunities for coastal communities. However, coral reefs worldwide have suffered severe damage due to anthropogenic factors, leading to their rapid degradation. Thus, next to preventative actions, coral reef restoration efforts are necessary to avoid complete degradation. In response, businesses have emerged that focus on coral reef restoration as their core business activity. Given that this is a new phenomenon, research on such businesses, Coral Reef Restoration Enterprises (CRRE), is scarce. Therefore, this thesis aims to address this research gap by investigating their business models, value capture strategies, and internal and external drivers and barriers. For this, interviews with representatives of CRRE as well as with relevant market actors and a complementary desktop research were conducted and analysed using a qualitative content analysis. The findings reveal that CRRE have identified multiple value capture strategies supported by a diverse set of value propositions in the economic, environmental, and social domain. As a result, this thesis presents a framework to describe and analyse their business model. The research also identified various internal and external factors that either aid or inhibit their work. Internally, CRRE particularly benefit from shared values within the company and are inhibited by lacking skills of workers. Externally, they mostly face barriers, especially in the political and economic domains. However, the findings also suggest that these domains have the potential to be drivers if they are adapted to the needs of these businesses. Overall, the findings of this research offer valuable strategic insights for practitioners in the field of coral reef restoration who aim for profitability, and insights for policymakers who can support these businesses by improving the policy landscape, establishing standardised biodiversity valuation systems, and providing financial support.