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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East Nusa Tenggara Province
Pollution Reduction & the Circular Economy
Cornelis Banabera
Twenty indigenous youth from Alor have been selected as Thresher Shark Conservation Champions by the Thresher Shark Indonesia organization and have developed a pilot project to establish a waste management system from the village to the district level. This project will expand the waste management system to 3 villages in close collaboration with stakeholders.
LEARN MOREMicrogrant
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Japan
Pollution Reduction & the Circular Economy
Ninomiya Ami
Northern Okinawa's main island, generally called “Yanbaru”, is an area with many unique landscapes such as subtropical laurel forests, cloud forests, rivers, mangroves, and limestone. This project worked with the local association of Yanbaru to create an exhibition by picking up and vacuum-sealing marine debris and making it into artwork. The exhibition was held at the Creator's Circuit at the Okuma beach & resort from January 11th - 31st, 2021.
LEARN MOREMicrogrant
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Honduras
Ocean Data, Literacy & Research
Trent Tresch
A group of researchers led by Trent Tresch will conduct multiple deep-sea dives to study the six gill sharks and the presence of microplastics at depths of 1000-2,500 feet off of Roatan, Honduras. The footage and findings from their research is shared through a display at a local museum, and SOA is partnering with them to share their project to raise awareness of the ways human impacts are being felt even at the depths of the ocean.
LEARN MOREMicrogrant
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Tonga
Ocean Data, Literacy & Research
Leonati Motuliki
This project led by the Mounu Ocean Academy contributes to reef monitoring and whale conservation through community education, participation, and volunteer training. A training course will be developed to teach volunteers how to conduct regular reef surveys. The data will inform citizen science initiatives such as Reef Check and Coral Watch.
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Startup
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USA
Blue Foods (Sustainable Protein, Fisheries & Aquaculture)
Kortney Opshaug
Blue Ocean Gear is changing the commercial fishing industry with intelligent, connected Smart Buoys to provide real-time gear tracking for commercial fishing fleets out on the ocean. Without this technology, over 600,000 metric tons of fishing gear is lost to the oceans every year, consuming up to 30% of the world's fishery stocks while causing fleets to lose billions of dollars in revenue and gear replacement costs. Blue Ocean Gear's Smart Buoys are designed with a range of sensors that allow fishers to monitor the status of their gear whether onshore or on the water, receiving alerts of anomalous conditions so they can respond immediately and operate more efficiently. The buoys are also a valuable source of data on ocean conditions, providing insights that benefit ocean industry operations.
LEARN MOREMicrogrant
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Belarus
Ocean Data, Literacy & Research
Irina Ponedelnik
Although the Belarusian government considers ocean sustainability a low national priority, young people disagree and want to take action. As part of the Youth Initiative for Sustainable Development, this project held 5 informal lessons in 5 districts of the Minsk region (Belarus) to educate young people aged 14-20 about global ocean pollution. The final interactive event in Minsk took place in the Global Jam format, where young people came together and developed collaborative projects and solutions to the problems in Belarus pertaining to SDG 14.
LEARN MOREMicrogrant
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Kenya
Pollution Reduction & the Circular Economy
Dyna Kagendo
Land-based solid waste is the biggest contributor to marine litter along the Kenyan coastline. This team's overall goal is to help reduce and promote recycling of marine litter generated on Kenyan beaches for healthy oceans and healthy communities. They will implement a waste management program through beach and river delta clean ups, which will not only reduce the volume of waste in Mombasa's ocean/coast, but also bring economic benefits to the communities by promoting recycling and upcycling.
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Startup
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Slovenia
Pollution Reduction & the Circular Economy
Mojca Zupan
PlanetCare has designed the only purpose built microfiber filter that has been independently tested to capture over 90% of the fibers of all size ranges before they leave the drain pumps. The filter is installed as an external attachment to washing machines. As part of a closed loops system, cartridges are collected after use and reused/recycled.
LEARN MOREMicrogrant
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Indonesia
Ocean Data, Literacy & Research
Eka Yanti Ni Ketut
Blue School Bali is an informal educational program in Amed, Bali. The free of charge school provides lessons on environmental and ocean awareness to local children ages 7 to 15. They aim to educate 20 students over the term of the grant through classroom education and reef snorkeling excursions.
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