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Impact Relevant to policy option 2 countries Environmental Water quality and resources Renewable or nonrenewable resources The environmental consequences of firms and consumers Animal welfare International environmental impacts Legend:     √ √ √ √ √ √ A regulated development of the Blue Biotech sector would mitigate environmental impacts related to bioprospecting. √ A regulated development of the Blue Biotech sector would mitigate the impacts of bioprospecting on renewable sources. Large scale Blue Biotech applications could replace existing chemically based production chains and increase sustainability (e.g. in pharmaceuticals, food). √ √ A regulated development of the Blue Biotech sector would mitigate environmental impacts related to bioprospecting (deep-sea creatures) UNCLOS provisions on environmental impact assessments would benefit the international environment Option 1: Baseline scenario/no additional action option (not displayed in above table); Option 2: Facilitation and promotion/soft measure; Option 3: Mainstreaming Blue Biotechnology; Option 4: Formal policy measures 5.2 Assessment of impacts by measure All measures identified in Section 4 have been qualified in terms of their economic, social and environmental impact. For each impact category (economic, social, environmental), a qualitative score is given from “-“ (poor) to “0” (neutral) to “+” (minor positive impact) to “++” (substantial positive impact) to “+++” (major positive impact). This is presented in Table 5.2. It is noted that for a number of actions, the direct impact will be limited (e.g. when the action concerns the execution of a study on a particular topic), but the relevance may still be high as such actions be set the ground work needed for any further implementation activities. 3 4 development of third countries involved Explanation 72 Study in support of Impact Assessment work on Blue Biotechnology

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