At this year’s One Ocean Science Congress (OOS25), Harald Hasler-Sheetal presented insights from the BlueMissionAA project on how to track and guide marine ecosystem restoration through a novel integrated framework.

The presentation, titled “Integrating PESTEL and Theory of Change for Scalable Marine Ecosystem Restoration and Governance,” introduced a new approach to monitoring Mission Ocean outcomes. By combining:

• Theory of Change to model the pathway from project inputs to societal impact, and
• PESTEL analysis to examine external drivers (Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Environmental, Legal),

…this framework moves beyond compliance-based reporting toward a dynamic and adaptive monitoring logic, anchored in both project-level KPIs and system-wide transformation.

Drawing from real-world lessons in projects like ACTNOW, FutureMARES, AA-AGORA, Climat-REST and Bioprotect. the presentation emphasized how external factors like regulatory shifts (e.g. EU Nature Restoration Law) or social acceptance can determine restoration success. The approach supports EU Lighthouses in linking restoration deliverables to policy impact and transboundary governance.

This work reinforces BlueMissionAA’s role in enabling actionable, scalable, and evidence-informed restoration under the EU Mission “Restore our Ocean and Waters.”

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