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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Indonesia
Blue Foods (Sustainable Protein, Fisheries & Aquaculture)
Putri Martosudarmo
Thresher Shark Project Indonesia focuses on the conservation of Thresher sharks in Alor, East Tenggara, Indonesia. This microgrant supports the Thresher Shark Champion Program, which engages young communities of Alor to participate in trainings, fisheries monitoring, and conservation outreach programs to support the development of a local conservation policy in Alor.
LEARN MOREMicrogrant
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Nigeria
Pollution Reduction & the Circular Economy
Jephthah Adelowo
This project aims to educate youth in 5 schools in the Ibadan, Nigeria area about ocean plastic problems, and create an upcycling program and local upcycling competition to take place between December 2021 - February 2022. They will also organize a beach clean-up., Ocean Plastic Upcycling Project will create plastic upcycling programs in schools in local communities and will connect learners to recycling agencies for growth and impact.
LEARN MOREMicrogrant
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USA
Ocean Data, Literacy & Research
Alexandra Doudera
Saltwater Classroom has conducted a workshop for 200+ 3rd to 5th grade students. This workshop focused on kelp forests, and was conducted in collaboration with Saltwater Classroom's non-profit partners. Through this project, Saltwater Classroom aimed to increase environmental literacy around blue carbon habitats like kelp forests for young students.
LEARN MOREMicrogrant
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Haiti
Ecosystem Preservation & Restoration
Katie O'Hara
Loggerhead Marinelife Center and the Haiti Ocean Project provided Haitian youth with the resources and knowledge to develop Haiti's first children's book on the importance of protecting sea turtles. This book was written and illustrated by Haitian students and distributed throughout Haiti’s fishing communities to educate and empower youth as future leaders in ocean conservation.
LEARN MOREMicrogrant
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Romania
Pollution Reduction & the Circular Economy
Marian Paiu
Twice each year, this project recruits and trains new citizen scientists to become members of the #plajecurate ("clean beaches") community. At the conclusion of their training, members created a report to share with local authorities and project stakeholders. Their goal was to share scientifically reliable information about marine litter, and provide stakeholders with concrete ways to take action.
LEARN MOREMicrogrant
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Honduras
Pollution Reduction & the Circular Economy
Joel Antonio Guity Zapata
This project aims to mitigate the problems of plastic accumulation on the beaches of the Garifuna communities of the Bay of Trujillo (San Antonio and Guadalupe) , through the collection of waste and the training of young people on the problems caused by plastics in coastal ecosystems. The main purpose is to empower, train and sensitize young people on environmental issues in order to protect the environment and well-being of the beaches and ocean.
LEARN MOREMicrogrant
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Brazil
Ocean Data, Literacy & Research
Amanda Suita Moraes
80 Brazilian public elementary school teachers will receive 2 months of training in ocean literacy, scientific experiments and new pedagogical tools that they can implement with their respective classrooms. The goal is that each teacher will be able to educate 30 students.
LEARN MOREMicrogrant
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Canada
Pollution Reduction & the Circular Economy
Alexa Goodman
Stop Trashing It is a network of youth helping people shift awareness into action when it comes to living lighter on the planet. They aim to ease these habit changes and encourage self-accountability through workshops, digital communications, and action campaigns.
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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