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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Peru
Ocean Data, Literacy & Research
Javier Validivia De La Gala
SOA Arequipa aims to disseminate science and pollution reduction solutions through social networks, campaigns, and expositions for public and private centers to spread awareness of the regional impacts of marine pollution. They guided participants through experiential learning such as in-person documentation trips and the creation of public presentations on the matter.
LEARN MOREMicrogrant
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Cameroon
Pollution Reduction & the Circular Economy
Achare Elvis Ayamba
Douala, the commercial capital of Cameroon with a population of about 6 million people has recently been experiencing an upsurge of plastic waste bottles from the activities of brewery companies with negative impacts on the surrounding environment (land, oceans and human health). Environment and Food Foundation (E2F) wish to supplement the work being done in the city by opening up a new collection point for plastic bottles, raise awareness on proper plastic waste management, and empower and train 100 unemployed youths and 3,000 students on the re-use of the plastic waste bottles collected to manufacture durable items like eco-benches, bulb coverings, bracelets/bangles.
LEARN MOREMicrogrant
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Indonesia
Carbon (CO2) Reduction & Blue Carbon
Indri Addini
Led by the organization CarbonEthics, project Bintang seeks to use lessons learned from blue carbon conservation in the Thousand Islands to scale up their efforts in Bintan Island, Indonesia. The project will focus on blue carbon restoration in Bintan Island through mangrove seed diversification and research as well as seagrass research.
LEARN MOREMicrogrant
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Brunei
Ocean Data, Literacy & Research
Shaima Misli
SOA Brunei conducted an Ocean Leadership Camp called AdvocaSEA Camp, which brought 30 youth leaders together from various schools in Brunei to do a capacity-building program focused on marine conservation. The participants will also have the opportunity to form collaborations and pitch a project at the end of the program, which may be given a small grant- funding of which may be provided by partnership with the U.S. Embassy in Brunei.
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Startup
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United Kingdom
Carbon (CO2) Reduction & Blue Carbon
Phill White & Russell Elfenbein
Cloud Cycle revolutionized the ready-mix industry by digitising concrete and enabling companies to improve concrete quality, reduce operational costs and CO2 emissions. Cloud Cycle has since pivoted their business.
LEARN MOREMicrogrant
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Netherlands
Ocean Data, Literacy & Research
Marcel Kempers
Reef Support aims to create a community reef map and platform to invite individuals (divers, scientists, students, tourists) to upload what they see in the the water in an effort to advocate for participatory science. This data will be combined with satellite imagery and artificial intelligence and be used towards the goal of protecting coral reefs alongside local partners in small islands.
LEARN MOREMicrogrant
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Portugal
Ocean Data, Literacy & Research
Eugenia Barroca & Pereira Rocha
Ocean Wide Web (OWW) is one of Ocean Hub Portugal's programs that is essentially an Ocean Literacy educational online platform. With the Ocean Solutions Microgrant support, we have our first online courses: Caravela and Bússola. Caravela's goal is to raise awareness of the challenges facing the ocean and share an overview of the current global situation as well as possibilities for action in the area, with the aim of inspiring and training young leaders to align their course with the ocean sustainability. The Bússola course at Ocean Hub Portugal is a 4-day training that aims to offer mentoring and practical tools for young ocean leaders.
LEARN MOREMicrogrant
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Thailand
Ocean Data, Literacy & Research
Jomphol Lamoonkit
SOA Thailand is seeking to grow and strengthen the network of people working on ocean conservation issues in Thailand. They will do this by conducting a series of online workshops, as well as one offline workshop and an online/offline art exhibition in Bangkok.
LEARN MOREMicrogrant
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Gambia
Ocean Data, Literacy & Research
Betty Jahateh
The Dive into Marine Science program will educate 150 youths (75 university and 75 high school students) on ocean literacy and advocacy to build the knowledge and understanding of aquatic ecosystems in The Gambia. The activities will include environmental and biodiversity data collection and interpretation along the Tanbi Wetland Complex (TWC) and Bijilo Beach, using both laboratory and field equipment.
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