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
/
United States of America
Pollution Reduction & the Circular Economy
Megan Hansen
The University of Southern Mississippi Hub will conduct monthly cleanups during the academic year at polluted locations at or near bodies of water in the Hattiesburg and Mississippi Gulf Coast areas. The focus is on areas that drain into major rivers in the area. Collected waste will be tracked and reported to local interest groups.
LEARN MOREMicrogrant
/
Indonesia
Ecosystem Preservation & Restoration
Rosita Ayu Meidyana
Kelapa Dua is one of the many small islands in Kepulauan Seribu. The island and its surrounding waters are part of a National Park system, heavily influenced by tidal waves. In order to help protect the coastline from erosion, this group has proposed a coral reef restoration/artificial reef project to use a concrete transplantation method to plant a test track of reef and monitor the growth of the transplanted corals.
LEARN MOREMicrogrant
/
USA
Blue Foods (Sustainable Protein, Fisheries & Aquaculture)
Max Diamond
This project contributes to the conservation of kelp by removing invasive purple sea urchins. Divers are paid to harvest barren urchins, which are then ranched with feedstock created from restaurant waste. The goal is to increase the economic value of barren urchins while providing food to humans and removing an invasive species that will allow kelp to grow healthy.
LEARN MOREMicrogrant
/
Argentina
Ocean Data, Literacy & Research
Giuliana Fiore
This project generates ocean awareness in Argentina, where only a small portion of the population lives near the coast. They developed two series of podcasts focused on Argentinian coastal wetland ecosystems as well as sharks, rays, and chimera species found in the Argentinian Sea. They also partnered with Proyecto Sub and Proyecto Arrecife to create a photographic record of cartilaginous fish species and marine coastal wetlands in the region.
LEARN MORE
Startup
/
Italy
Ocean Data, Literacy & Research
Andrea Bertini
Ecodrone develops sea drones powered by renewable solar and wind energy for use in collecting valuable scientific data related to climate change, diffusion of pollutants, weather forecasting, and coastal law enforcement.
LEARN MOREMicrogrant
/
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
/
Brazil
Ocean Data, Literacy & Research
Heitor Sabino
Brazil has one of the longest coastlines, and more than 80% of the population lives in the coastal zone, but little is discussed about the Ocean in schools, universities and communities. This project sought to fill this gap and produced a series of 12 webinars targeting young citizens (13-25yrs), all openly available on Youtube, in order to increase ocean awareness and communication, and call to action.
LEARN MOREMicrogrant
/
Seychelles
Ocean Data, Literacy & Research
Jeremy Raguain
This project will visit and film 7 islands of the Seychelles to highlight and document biodiversity, island and marine conservation initiatives and challenges, marine protected areas and research. Seychellois will be interviewed and featured and the videos will be translated into the 3 official Seychelles languages.
LEARN MOREMicrogrant
/
Wewak and Lae
Pollution Reduction & the Circular Economy
Vinzealhar Nen
This project is used to highlight the traditional conservation methods of PNG. We aim to interview village elders from two villages and conduct awareness programs on upcycling thrash in the capital. After the interviews, we aim to run a trail of 3 months to a year to see how effective these traditional methods are.
LEARN MORE
