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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France
Carbon (CO2) Reduction & Blue Carbon
Louise Delion
The Phœnix Expedition made a groundbreaking journey from France to California in order to document and promote local solutions to regenerate marine ecosystems with a focus on Blue Carbon and CO2 emissions avoidance. Ahead of the voyage, they created educational material to raise awareness around Blue Carbon, and 10% of all funds received will go towards restoration of coastal habitats.
LEARN MOREMicrogrant
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Indonesia
Pollution Reduction & the Circular Economy
Nurma Tsabita Hanifah
The goal of this project is to help establish a rainwater harvesting and filtration system on Pari Island to rebuild sustainable drinking water supply for local residents. This project also conducts educational programs for locals tourists on island resource-management.
LEARN MOREMicrogrant
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Japan
Pollution Reduction & the Circular Economy
Robin Takashi Lewis
Mymizu (“mizu” is water in Japanese) provides a free water refill platform that connects people to 200,000+ locations globally where they can refill their water bottle, instead of buying bottled water. This project supported the development of educational materials for Mymizu volunteers and community members to carry out their own workshops across Japan.
LEARN MOREMicrogrant
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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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Japan
Pollution Reduction & the Circular Economy
Yuhei Hikada
The objective of 久米島赤土等流出防止プロジェクト (Kumejima red soil outflow prevention project) is to take measures against the outflow of red soil in Kumejima in order to prevent further damage to the island’s biodiverse coral reefs. Agricultural runoff accounts for more than 80% of the red soil smothering the reefs - so this project proposes to take measures to prevent the outflow of red soil by planting a green belt of Akabanana (Hibiscus) will be used, which is a plant that is familiar to the islanders and also serves as a windbreaker. They will also recruit greenbelt planting volunteers from local elementary and high schools, and conduct educational activities by giving lectures on the outflow of red soil and experiencing planting. In addition they will outsource the work to employment support facilities on the island, aiming to help employment of people with disabilities.
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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Spain
Ocean Data, Literacy & Research
ALVARO ADAME RODRIGUEZ
This project, led by technicians from the Universidad de Cadiz, aims to implement a beach sponsorships for La Inmaculada Public School in Cadiz, in which students from the school will learn about marine litter problems through a new curated curriculum, and participate in citizen science at Bahia de Cadiz Natural Park.
LEARN MOREMicrogrant
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Malaysia
Ocean Data, Literacy & Research
Melissa Beata Martin
The project leverages epoxy resin art and youth workshops to help engage young people with the fundamental science of taxonomy, conservation, and ecology—all in alignment with the priorities of SOA and SDG 14. The project also aids experts by contributing to the establishment of conservation priorities of our Malaysian marine biological heritage.
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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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