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.
Startup
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USA
Blue Foods (Sustainable Protein, Fisheries & Aquaculture)
Jacob Isaac-Lowry & Sarah Alessi
FlyWire provides technology to track what happens on an individual fishing vessels to generate comprehensive reports about critical fisheries data at sea. Integrated hardware is installed on-vessel to monitor catch, handling, efficiency, and vessel performance using video, GPS, and other sensors throughout the fishing trip. Innovative software blends AI and human brainpower to build comprehensive catch reports based on data uploads, which helps meet certification and compliance standards twice as fast.
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 MOREMicrogrant
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Indonesia
Pollution Reduction & the Circular Economy
Reny Septiani
Seangle Movement is a Paliu-local youth movement that aims to combat plastic pollution. They do this through their Waste Education House program, which gives youth art education, recycling/upcycling education, and English language education to cohorts of 30 elementary school students per year. They also have a waste collection point, and the funds from the sale of recycled materials go toward continued educational programming.
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Startup
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Bahamas
Ecosystem Preservation & Restoration
Gator Halpern & Sam Teicher
Coral Vita grows climate change resilient coral up to 50x faster to restore dying reefs using a land-based farming model to scale up restoration, selling this service to customers who depend on the ecosystem services that reefs provide.
LEARN MOREMicrogrant
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Guatemala
Ecosystem Preservation & Restoration
Fabio Cresto Aleina
The Cayman Crown coral reef has been declared a "no-fishing zone" for the next 10 years by the Guatemalan government. Within the framework of the SOA grant, this group will be able to continue these efforts, providing a scientific report and a policy brief to support the inclusion of the coral reef into the already existing Marine Protected Area.
LEARN MOREMicrogrant
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Indonesia
Blue Foods (Sustainable Protein, Fisheries & Aquaculture)
Sihar Silalahi
Sawfish Project Indonesia is an interdisciplinary project that seeks to provide data about sawfish to local and national governments to implement legal protections for them. Sawfish Project Indonesia ultimately aims to enhance the capacity of indigenous peoples in Merauke to continue the important work of sawfish conservation locally. This project will perform an incubator workshop to teach the youth of Merauke about sawfish conservation.
LEARN MOREMicrogrant
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Indonesia
Ocean Data, Literacy & Research
Muhammad Wawan Adisaputra
Rumah Inspirasi Bontang is a 3-part solution to tackle plastic pollution in Berbas Pantai, East Kalimantan, Indonesia. The 3 parts are: 1) A “Coastal School” education program, targeting adolescents in their district; 2) A facilitated workshop on how to process waste, and 3) establishing a community-operated Waste Bank.
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Startup
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USA
Pollution Reduction & the Circular Economy
Jeff Anderson
Full Cycle Bioplastics is tackling both food waste and plastic pollution through their patented technology that converts organic waste into a compostable, biodegradable bioplastic (PHA). They are the only bioplastic that is cost-competitive with petroleum plastics and the only circular economy bioplastic company in the world. Their PHA is able to directly replace polypropylene, polyethylene, and polystyrene and at its end-of-life, it can be up-cycled through our system into virgin PHA again.
LEARN MOREMicrogrant
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Kenya
Pollution Reduction & the Circular Economy
Mohamed Kombo
This project includes cleanup of the Kwale river, a baseline survey, and a mural-painting project in the coastal county of Kwale, Kenya. The mural and graphics will create sensitisation to both literate and illiterate people about the importance of keeping the river clean.
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