GIST Impact and HUB Ocean partner to deliver science-backed ocean data for investors
London/Oslo, 29 September 2025
GIST Impact, a leading sustainability data and analytics provider, and HUB Ocean, a Norway-based foundation advancing ocean science and data infrastructure, today announced a strategic partnership to provide investors with usable, science-backed data and insights on ocean-related risks and impacts.
Despite the ocean’s critical role in regulating climate, supporting biodiversity, and sustaining industries, it has remained largely absent from investor datasets to date. With new TNFD ocean guidance, growing momentum toward the global 30×30 target (to protect 30% of marine and coastal areas by 2030), and advances in geospatial and AI technology, the right conditions are now in place to help close this gap.
Together, GIST Impact and HUB Ocean will focus on building usable datasets aligned with real financial use cases: screening, risk heat-mapping, stewardship and engagement, and reporting.
Mahima Sukhdev, Chief Growth Officer GIST Impact
By creating a new “nature layer” of data, the partners will map corporate asset locations and sector-specific pressures against robust ocean science. This will allow investors and companies to better understand their exposure to risks that are set to rise as biodiversity protection expands.
“Investors can’t manage what they can’t measure,” said Kimberly Mathisen, CEO of HUB Ocean. “This partnership provides the high-resolution data and scientific integrity needed to illuminate ocean-related risks and dependencies. By turning complex data into actionable insights, we will enable financial institutions to make better-informed decisions—for their portfolios and for the ocean.
“The ocean has long been a biodiversity blind spot for investors due to the lack of usable data,” said Mahima Sukhdev, Chief Growth Officer at GIST Impact. “With HUB Ocean, we’re changing that by combining GIST Impact’s asset-level data and AI with HUB Ocean’s science-grade layers. We’re inviting investors and companies to test these models with us to ensure they work on real portfolios, not just in theory.”
Kimberly Mathisen, CEO HUB Ocean
The collaboration will initially focus on three specific areas:
Asset-level exposure analysis to identify corporate assets located in or near marine protected areas (MPAs) and other biodiversity hotspots.
Sector-level pressure datasets, providing decision-useful indicators for high-impact industries such as shipping, offshore energy, coastal infrastructure, and aquaculture/fisheries.
Forward-looking signals of company readiness, helping investors assess how firms are acknowledging and addressing ocean-related risks and dependencies.
While the partnership will start with high-impact sectors where ocean interactions are most direct and measurable, the scope will expand over time to indirectly-exposed industries, such as those affected by fish stock collapse (e.g. hospitality), and supply-chain dependencies (e.g. apparel).
GIST Impact and HUB Ocean will work with investors to test the new datasets with the aim of refining and co-creating tools that are scientifically robust, aligned with TNFD, and immediately actionable to support investment decision-making and reporting.
To learn more about the collaboration or data access, please contact info@gistimpact.com.
GIST Impact Media Contact
Alexandra Downs, alexandra@gistimpact.com
About GIST Impact
GIST Impact is a market-leading sustainability data and analytics provider. We help companies and investors measure, value and manage their environmental and social impacts, risks and opportunities. Powered by a global team of experts, GIST Impact delivers precise, location-specific data covering over 18,500 companies, and is the chosen partner for some of the world’s largest corporations and investors representing over $8 trillion in assets under management.
HUB Ocean Media Contact
Vigdis Hvaal, vigdis.hvaal@oceandata.earth
About HUB Ocean
HUB Ocean is an independent non-profit foundation, dedicated to unlocking the power of data to protect and restore ocean health. The organization has built the performant geospatial and cloud-based Ocean Data Platform, giving scientists, experts, and organizations seamless access to fit-for-purpose ocean data from both public and private sources.
Through an intuitive workspace, flexible API, and Python SDK, HUB Ocean enables advanced analysis, planning, and decision-making to improve ocean management and ultimately ocean health. Built for interoperability and speed, the platform is designed to connect a federated ocean data ecosystem and accelerate collective action for a sustainable ocean.