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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Japan
Ecosystem Preservation & Restoration
Mitani Yuiko
Mobile Sea Otters cooperates with local fishermen, volunteer divers, and dive shops to eliminate and thin out sea urchins with the goal of regenerating kelp forests. Participants install a rope and a sea urchin invasion prevention net and exterminate the sea urchins in the frame. They collect and share data on the resulting rates of kelp forest degradation.
LEARN MOREMicrogrant
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Indonesia
Carbon (CO2) Reduction & Blue Carbon
Willy Angraini
This program engaged nine youth representatives from three islands in the Thousand Islands to develop technical and soft skills around climate change issues. Participants learned about direct action like planting mangroves and restoring seagrass meadows.
LEARN MOREMicrogrant
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Indonesia
Ecosystem Preservation & Restoration
Raditya Andrean Saputra
Reef Support and Indonesia Biru Foundation are working together to install the first coral lab in the Central Indonesia region. Funding will go towards building and setting up the coral lab, farming the first 1,000 corals, establishing a marketing campaign, and developing a scalable business model.
LEARN MOREMicrogrant
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Portugal
Ocean Data, Literacy & Research
Eugénia Barroca
Ocean Hub Portugal organized and hosted a series of webinars and podcasts with experts on different aspects of Deep Seabed Mining. They raised awareness about the issue in Portugal and throughout Portuguese-Speaking countries. In addition, the project created a board game—both physical and virtual—to make learning about deep seabed mining policies fun.
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Startup
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USA
Pollution Reduction & the Circular Economy
Mike Newman
Returnity replaces single-use shipping and delivery packaging by designing, manufacturing and implementing reusable packaging and circular logistics systems. Used for over 500,000 shipments per month, their packaging addresses the negative impacts from the rapid growth in direct to consumer shipping.
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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Indonesia
Carbon (CO2) Reduction & Blue Carbon
Willy Angraini
This project educated students in Tidung Island about SDG 14 and about blue carbon ecosystems. The program started with classroom lessons about the ocean and the SDG 14, followed by a mangrove and seagrass planting on the island. Students then regularly monitored the growth of their mangroves and seagrasses.
LEARN MOREMicrogrant
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Australia
Ocean Data, Literacy & Research
Heidi Dumesich
"Life on Planet A" is a podcast hosted by SOA Australia Ocean Solutions Hub Leaders Bella Charlesworth and Heidi Dumesich. During the course of the year, they will produce an online resource hub for young ocean leaders in Australia and abroad as well as host and produce podcasts that interview Ocean Experts from across all sectors of ocean science, policy, technology and sustainability.
LEARN MOREMicrogrant
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Sarangani
Blue Foods (Sustainable Protein, Fisheries & Aquaculture)
Caroline Nacional
Fly Fish Fly is a social enterprise that partners with local artisan fishers and women fish entrepreneurs of Maitum, Sarangani to produce high-quality flying fish and other seafood products using sustainable and ethical business practices.
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