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
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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Kenya
Carbon (CO2) Reduction & Blue Carbon
Josphat Nguu
As part Mikoko Pamoja's committments, they will plant 4000 new mangrove seedlings every year to qualify for carbon credits. "Returning the Lost Forests" tested the Riley Encasement Technique, an innovative replanting method, in a bid to rehabilitate mangroves in the denuded high energy intertidal areas of Gazi Bay.
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.
LEARN MOREMicrogrant
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Spain
Pollution Reduction & the Circular Economy
Martí Morató
Go Zero Waste is an App (iOS and Android) that shows plastic-free alternatives for everyday items and then shows where to buy it in your area. The app challenges users to start a zero-waste lifestyle with new sustainable habits and rewarding them with a gamification feature.
LEARN MOREMicrogrant
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Malaysia
Ocean Data, Literacy & Research
Melissa Beata Martin
This team will digitize the data of 1,000 key specimens at the South China Sea Repository and Reference Centre (RRC) so that data on Malaysian marine biodiversity can be made accessible to researchers and the general public, rather than just the researchers that work at RRC.
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.
LEARN MOREMicrogrant
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Cook Islands
Ocean Data, Literacy & Research
Alanna Smith
In order to enhance local Cook Islanders' understanding of seabed mining, Te Ipukarea Society hosted an interactive panel discussion event, 6 workshops for youth at schools, and produced a brief documentary on the threat Seabed Mining poses to the Cook Islands, which has over 5,000 views in less than one year.
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Startup
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USA
Blue Foods (Sustainable Protein, Fisheries & Aquaculture)
Liane Thompson & Simeon Pieterkosky
Aquaai is a data and undewater robotics service company with a vision to help keep humanity alive through sustainable and environmentally friendly practices that combine risk management and biomimicry. Aquaai has developed an affordable way to harness and deliver data from below the water's surface via a specialized, flexible, fishlike "Autonomous Underwater Vehicle" loaded with cameras and sensors that "swims" and transmits visual and environmental data to an online dashboard.
LEARN MOREMicrogrant
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Portugal
Ecosystem Preservation & Restoration
Filipa Duarte
Conservar e aMar aims to decrease sea turtle mortality and thus increase sea turtle conservation. Sea turtles are often bycatch when black scabbardfish fishermen utilize horizontal longline. The efficacy of a rescue rod versus a net will be tested and then implemented with approximately 20 fishermen in Funchal, Portugal.
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