Social equity, alongside environmental sustainability and economic development is increasingly recognised as central to a sustainable blue economy, and sustainable development more broadly (Cisneros-Montemayor et al. 2019). Yet, despite this, social equity , has been largely overlooked in blue economy discourses, policies, and activities (Bennett et al. 2021; Österblom et al. 2020). In part this omission may be due to limited understandings of equity and poor guidance on how to put it into practice, including how equity goals and objectives can be institutionalised. We seek to address these challenges in this paper by providing practical suggestions on how equity can be understood in the context of blue economies and how it can be implemented in ocean and coastal management. The authors have developed two scoping paper exploring these issues, and considerations of equity and its operationalisation in within the context of blue economies. The second paper in this series explores in more details tracking progress on implementation through an examination of indicators. Although we offer practical suggestions to work toward social equity, the approach outlined here is not meant to be ‘one size fits all’. Rather this paper offers a starting point that can be adapted to fit the context in which it is being applied. It thus provides high level guidance to national level governments to assist in ensuring that equity is thoroughly and comprehensively considered with blue economy planning and governance. In each of the steps laid out here, we offer specific questions that can be asked to gauge whether equity is being considered in order to plan how to better advance it blue economy initiatives.

This paper is broken up into four sections. We begin by introducing the concept of equity and identifies four overarching equity principles that we ague should underpin objective setting and implementation planning. It also highlights how equity is enacted in both processes and outcomes. This section is meant to clarify and define understandings of equity in general, thus laying the groundwork for putting equity into practice in specific blue economy plans and initiatives. Second, we introduce the UNEP Sustainable Blue Economy Transitions Framework (referred to from here, as UNEP STF) as the mechanism through which governance arrangements for an equitable blue economy can be explored and enacted. We then introduce a step-by-step guide for national governments aimed at supporting the development of contextually sensitive governance arrangements for an equitable blue economy. The framework that we put forward to embed equity into ocean governance aligns to the phases of the UNEP STF. Finally, we provide a summary of key messages and provides links to further equity resources.