Sustainable Ocean Alliance (SOA) activates young people, develops and implements innovative solutions, and mobilizes an ocean workforce to restore the health of the ocean in our lifetime.
Since founded by Daniela Fernandez in 2014, SOA has built the world’s largest network of young ocean leaders and supported innovative startups, nonprofits, and grassroots campaigns dedicated to solving the greatest threats facing our planet.
Two years ago at the World Economic Forum, we shared our vision with the world, and Salesforce Chair and Co-CEO Marc Benioff challenged us to accelerate 100 solutions by 2021.
Today, SOA is proud to announce that as of 2021, we have more than doubled our initial goal: we have accelerated 222 startups, nonprofits, and grassroots initiatives all over the world, each dedicated to restoring and sustaining the health of our ocean.
The Ocean Solutions Accelerator helps entrepreneurs launch for-profit ocean solutions for a sustainable blue economy by providing funding, mentorship, and other critical resources to scale their ventures and amplify their impact.
The Ocean Leadership Program (OLP) holistically supports over 6,000 global participants with the resources and networks they need to build ocean-healing solutions and to reach their full potential as ocean leaders. The OLP awards Microgrants of up to $15,000 USD to outstanding youth leaders to execute and scale their projects, and provides 72 youth-led Hubs with leadership and programmatic support.
Together, these 222 solutions for ocean restoration have touched tens of thousands of lives, restored critical marine ecosystems worldwide, invented sustainable alternatives to plastics, pioneered cutting-edge technology to illuminate the mysteries of our deepest seas and much, much more.
Each startup, nonprofit, and grassroots initiative has focused its efforts across five key areas of ocean health impact.
Learn more, and explore all 222 solutions below.
IMPACT:
15,540 metric tons of CO2 reduced, avoided, or sequestered
The fight to address climate change cannot be separated from the drive to support solutions that address carbon removal and blue carbon ecosystem development. In 2020, 31.5 gigatons of carbon (CO2) were emitted globally, with 83% of the carbon cycle circulating through the ocean. Certain marine and coastal ecosystems—like tidal marshes, mangroves, and seagrass meadows—play a critical role in this cycle by sequestering and storing what’s then known as “blue carbon.”
These ecosystems are critical to climate change mitigation. Mangroves and salt marshes, for example, remove carbon from the atmosphere at a rate 10 times greater and store five times more carbon per acre than tropical forests.
IMPACT:
1,755 metric tons of solid waste removed, upcycled, or avoided
Each year, only 9% of plastic produced ends up recycled—which results in 10 million tons of plastic dumped into our oceans every year. That’s nearly equivalent to the weight of the entire human population. These pollutants are responsible for choking marine life, destroying both marine and coastal ecosystems, and polluting our own food sources.
Today, the average person ingests over 70,000 microplastics each year (that’s 100 pieces over the course of a single meal). The solutions in this category work to reduce and eliminate items like single-use plastics. Their work in turn helps to build the circular economy, which promotes the extension of product lifecycles and aims to decrease solid waste and pollution.
IMPACT:
89,128 square meters of blue carbon ecosystems protected or restored
In addition to sustaining marine life and the communities that depend on it, coastal ecosystems account for approximately half of the total carbon sequestered in ocean sediments. These may include coral reefs, mangrove forests, kelp forests, wetlands, and seagrass beds. Together, they serve as nurseries for marine organisms and as critical areas of blue carbon capture.
However, many marine ecosystems are experiencing degradation and destruction by human activities, which not only leads to species depletion, but also releases the critically stored carbon back into the atmosphere.
Solutions in this category have monitored 150,000 kilometers of coastline for climate change adaptation planning, detected 67,000 whales to avoid marine collisions, produced 150+ ocean literacy reports and media projects, hosted 260 events with more than 30,000 youth participants, and much more.
More than 80% of our ocean is unmapped, unobserved, and unexplored. In the United States, only 35% of the ocean and coastal waters have been mapped with modern methods. In order to inform policy decisions that ensure marine and coastal ecosystem sustainability—and to empower humans worldwide to take local action to save the ocean—we need reliable data sources, mapping, and consistent analysis.
Some projects in the category of ocean literacy, data, and research focus on data collection and analysis, while other initiatives are dedicated to fostering knowledge-sharing and creating local opportunities for action. All play critical roles in leveraging knowledge and technical skills to catalyze lasting ocean impact.
Every year, 30% of commercial fish stocks are overfished, while harmful fishing practices cause over 38 million tons of bycatch (the incidental capture of a non-target species). As a result, this institutionalized overfishing has contributed to a marked decrease in recorded marine species over the last 40 years.
Sustainable protein, fisheries, and aquaculture solutions address the challenge of sustainably feeding the world's growing human population without the continued exploitation of marine habitats and species.
SOA’s solutions in this area are varied, with many developing new, innovative systems of impact tracking. One Microgrant project is developing a supply chain around selling “gourmet” sea urchins in order to quell California’s invasive purple sea urchin population explosion. Another is piloting a CSA-style delivery service in the Philippines to support seasonal, sustainably caught seafood. Our Accelerator alumni are hard at work in this area as well, developing plant-based alternatives to seafood (think kelp burgers, kelp jerky, and cell-cultured tuna), net sensors to reduce bycatch, deepwater solar irrigation for seaweed farming, and more.
Microgrant
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USA
Ocean Data, Literacy & Research
Emily Kracht
Sweetwater Wetlands Park is an important part of the Gainesville, FL community. However, it is located near a GRU water treatment facility where exposure risk to pollutants and contaminants is high. This project uses analytical chemistry methods and instrumentation in a lab to detect various compounds in Sweetwater in collaboration with the University of Florida Environmental Toxicology Lab. The goal is to produce a study of these compounds and other pollutants in Sweetwater and present findings to the public.
LEARN MOREMicrogrant
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Mexico
Ocean Data, Literacy & Research
Ibrahí Rodríguez Larreta
This project led by SOA Mexico will select and train 6 - 7 local youth to take part in the monitoring process of the selected waterbody of Todos Santos in the Baja California Peninsula. Data will be collected in regards to the water's safety for human consumption.
LEARN MOREMicrogrant
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Mexico
Ocean Data, Literacy & Research
Karen Fuentes
The Manta Caribbean Project is developing conservation strategies that ensure the long-term safeguarding of mobulid rays in collaboration with various stakeholders such as lobster fishermen, MPA rangers, and MPA managers. The project provides workshops for fishing cooperatives on tactics to reduce the risk of mobulid entanglements and increase community knowledge about the species.
LEARN MOREMicrogrant
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Indonesia
Ocean Data, Literacy & Research
Mikhael Tefa
Divers Clean Action Network (DCA) created a learning platform for youth leaders by holding campaigns and webinars with the topic "Let's Talk About Deep Seabed Mining in Indonesia" (Bahasa Indonesia: Yuk, Ngobrolin Deep Seabed Mining di Indonesia) that was incorporated into monthly SOA Indonesia webinars. Along with raising awareness and understanding, they aim to equip the Indonesian population to monitor the government and industries Deep Seabed Mining activities and regulations in order to prevent more environmental damage to our oceans.
LEARN MOREMicrogrant
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Ghana
Blue Foods (Sustainable Protein, Fisheries & Aquaculture)
Eric Appiah Krampah
In affiliation with the African Centre of Excellence in Coastal Resilience at the University of Cape Coast, this program will isolate and culture local marine microalgae strains to serve as a food source for oyster larval rearing. The performance of these microalgae-fed larvae will be assessed in the laboratory and then transplanted to the field. This is being done in order to find a solution for the recent exploitation of the West African Mangrove Oyster.
LEARN MOREMicrogrant
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Uganda
Pollution Reduction & the Circular Economy
Johnmary Kavuma
Upcycle Africa educates communities on the threats plastic poses to our planet, and endeavours to change mindsets about plastic waste. With our waste collection program, we also collect plastic waste from beaches, streets and bus stations and train local community members on how to turn "waste" into upcycled products.
LEARN MOREStartup
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Hong Kong & China
Pollution Reduction & the Circular Economy
Jonathan Tostevin
Using a seamless deposit system and fully-integrated mobile/web application, Muuse operates a global network of elegant, robust, tech-enabled products, cups and food containers, for the to-go food economy.
LEARN MOREMicrogrant
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Malaysia
Blue Foods (Sustainable Protein, Fisheries & Aquaculture)
Mohamad Nor Azra Md Adib
The project addreses the dual threat of overfishing and climate change to berried females of blue swimming crab in Straits of Tebrau, Gelang Patah, Johor, the Southern Peninsular of Malaysia. This area used to be the prolific spawning ground of the berried females until stocks were depleted in the 2020s.
LEARN MOREMicrogrant
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Peru
Ecosystem Preservation & Restoration
Daniel Caceres
SOA Peru implemented a number of projects related to supporting fisherfolk in coastal communities: assisting fishermen in achieving sustainability certifications and recording and sharing their stories. Another project will investigate the relationship between copper extraction off the coast of Chile and Peru and the high mortality and disappearance of mollusks.
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