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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Mexico
Pollution Reduction & the Circular Economy
Silda Valeria Ortiz Sosa
The Fourth Stage of "I Heal the Ocean" aims to generate a sustainable project of circular economy around the management of plastic residues that land on the beaches in Southern Quintana Roo, Mexico, specifically in the village of Mahahual.
LEARN MOREMicrogrant
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Brazil
Ocean Data, Literacy & Research
Giovanna Scagnolatto
The city of Paraty, an important tourist spot in Brazil, experiences detrimental levels of marine habitat destruction and species loss. This project educated local youth on the impacts of anthropogenic actions and also present sustainable solutions that can replace predatory activities and increase the fishing stock of the region through respect for protected areas. The project offered a three-day minicourse for students (ages 13-17) from public schools in the Paraty community. At the minicourse, participants discussed themes related to marine conservation and the conscious use of natural resources.
LEARN MOREMicrogrant
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Ghana
Ocean Data, Literacy & Research
Gideon Sarpong
This project leverages journalism and storytelling tools to put a spotlight on the challenge of illegal, unregulated and unreported (IUU) activities as well as marine pollution and its dangers to the ocean and society. Leaders trained 15 journalists in Ghana to use storytelling to educate, persuade, and influence ocean-related policy decisions by elevating ocean discussions to the top of the national agenda, while also deploying a digital campaign to educate residents across West Africa on the dangers of marine pollution, and improve practices of waste management.
LEARN MOREMicrogrant
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Ghana
Pollution Reduction & the Circular Economy
Gideon Sarpong
Over the years, the ocean has played a critical role as a climate regulator by absorbing about 30% of human emissions of carbon dioxide, but the ocean health has been severely damaged as a result of plastic waste in the last two decades. This project seeks to leverage data and storytelling tools to spotlight the challenge of marine pollution and its dangers to society. The project also deploys a digital campaign involving use of short videos and infographics to educate residents across West Africa on the dangers of marine pollution, and improve practices of waste management.
LEARN MOREMicrogrant
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Ecuador
Ocean Data, Literacy & Research
Jacqueline González Garcés
This project, affiliated with SOA Chile, and led by 3 project leaders from different Latin American countries, seeks to create an interactive ebook for children and youth. The book will cover the topics learned in SOA's La Academia in an accessible way for the target audience. The ultimate goal is to change the way in which youth gain knowledge about the ocean as an ecosystem and that they understand the impact that humans have on this ecosystem.
LEARN MOREMicrogrant
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Trinidad and Tobago
Ocean Data, Literacy & Research
Khadija Stewart
Using media, this program will highlight the issues facing the ocean surrounding Trinidad and Tobago, highlight research being conducted in the country, and the stories of coastal communities connected to the ocean. There will be six podcast episodes, 6 blog articles and an interactive magazine with content contributed by youth, industry experts, community members and researchers.
LEARN MOREMicrogrant
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Cameroon
Carbon (CO2) Reduction & Blue Carbon
Anthony Duxell Malle
In Cameroon, coastal community members depend on mangroves for fish-drying, which has greatly degraded the mangrove forests. This program provided training for the vulnerable coastal population to restore mangrove ecosystems and protect the shoreline, and organized workshops to teach modern skills such as how to make mangrove nurseries and protect the shoreline.
LEARN MOREMicrogrant
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Indonesia
Ocean Data, Literacy & Research
Janis Argeswara
This project collects data on Manta Rays in The Nusa Penida Marine Protected Area (MPA), and couples this information with individual sightings data to understand their population demographics and dynamics. The information garnered from this study will provide data on manta ray life-history parameters and lend insights into whether sites repeatedly used by smaller individuals can be considered nurseries for this species, which is an understudied aspect of manta ray ecology. The information from this study will be used to inform tourism management within the MPA.
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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.
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