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3 For-Profit Companies Cleaning the Ocean and Paying Living Wages · How To Protect The Ocean

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  There is a business model that really is working for a few different companies
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  I'm gonna talk about today, because they help clean up the ocean, and
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  they help us better understand the ocean one way or another, and a lot
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  of them are for-profit businesses.
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  So I think this is a really important show for those of you who are entrepreneurs or
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  those of you who might be scientists and conservationists who really wanna have
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  an impact and solve problems, but may not wanna go the non-profit way, because
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  let's be honest, the non-profit or sector is really difficult to get grants and
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  foundations to give you money these days.
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  And sometimes it's better just to sell a product or have something
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  there that people can use and help them fund the work that you wanna do.
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  So we're gonna be talking about that on today's episode of
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  the How to Protect the Ocean.
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  Livable Wages in Coastal Conservation Work is the title of this episode.
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  It's gonna be fun.
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  I can't wait, 'cause it's something that's very near and dear to me, something that
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  I've been trying to do for a long time.
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  And we're gonna talk about three different companies that I have had
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  interaction with or I've used their products that I think are really good.
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  We talked about one yesterday, 4Oceans.
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  We'll talk about Ocean Sole, that have been sponsors of this podcast before,
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  and have been on the podcast before.
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  And we're gonna talk about Follow, which is the bracelets that I wear if you've-
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  you can see some of the clips, this is what I wear on the bracelets that tag
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  animals, and then we get to watch where they go, but it goes towards science,
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  and they go to funding organizations.
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  We'll talk all about that on today's episode of the How
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  to Protect the Ocean podcast.
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  This is where you find your ocean news and the companies who are working to
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  help understand the ocean better and clean up the ocean and do that coastal
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  conservation work that we so need done, and all by user-funded products and sales.
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  And it's a lot of fun to be able to talk about this, ' cause I feel like
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  it's a new way of really working with the ocean and cleaning up the ocean,
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  the social enterprises, the B Corps that help keep our oceans clean, that
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  help best, better understand the oceans by supporting different organizations.
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  So that's what we're gonna talk about today.
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  And if you wanna support all the work I do, giving you the resource that you
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  need to make better daily decisions for the ocean, you can do that by going to
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  our Patreon page and supporting us there.
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  Speakupforblue.com/patreon is how you get there.
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  Speakupforblue.com/patreon.
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  All our links to the links that I mention or anything that I mention will be in the
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  show notes, so you can check that out.
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  Okay, we're gonna talk about three businesses.
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  Yes, we're gonna talk about 4Ocean, we're gonna talk about Ocean Sole,
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  and we're gonna talk about Follow.
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  And we're gonna talk about why it's so important that these businesses exist and
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  what they are showing could be done as a business model for conservation work.
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  I think that's really important.
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  Yesterday we focused on 4Ocean, so I'm not gonna talk a lot about it, but
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  essentially 4Ocean employs over 200 full-time captains and cleanup crew
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  members at living wages across Florida, Bali, Haiti, Guatemala, and other places.
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  The company also employs 350-plus bracelet artisans in Bali and
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  Guatemala who hand-make products from recovered ocean plastic.
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  I can't tell you how important that is to support people in developing countries
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  to be able to get a living wage and then produce something, and the empowerment
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  that that gives the people who are doing it, as well as the funds and revenue that
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  it provides for 4Ocean to do their work that they need to do and still remain a
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  profitable company is just exceptional.
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  It really is.
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  And then the workers, they receive full-time status.
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  They receive health insurance and bonuses, that's according to the
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  company and third party reporting, 'cause they are a B corp. And this
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  contrasts with, like, a collection center model used by some competitors
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  where informal collectors are paid per pound of material gathered rather than
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  employed directly, which happens because we're gonna be talking about Ocean Sole.
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  Ocean Sole is a company, it's actually a really, really cool company.
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  Let me just look up their website here.
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  I had it up here at some point.
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  Ocean Sole, it's transforming ocean waste into art.
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  So essentially, if you've never seen this, they used to sponsor
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  the podcast for a few episodes.
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  I had them on the podcast for a few episodes.
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  They recycle 10,000 plus flip-flops every week.
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  And what they do is they have people in Kenya who go out
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  and collect these flip-flops,
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  hence the Sole, Ocean Sole.
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  And so all these flip-flops come in different colors, and they're
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  styrofoamy and they're plasticky and, if you just leave them on
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  the beach, they'll break down.
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  They'll become these little nurdles.
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  They'll get into, animals, and the toxins will get into the animals.
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  It'll kill the animals, multiple, like, sea turtles, marine mammals,
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  sharks, tuna, sea birds, a lot of, uh, different fish, and not good
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  for corals and things like that.
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  So what happens is you have people who go out and collect these soles, and
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  they put them into bags, and they bring them to people from Ocean Sole, and
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  they get paid per amount of, I don't know if it's by weight or what have you,
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  but of the flip-flops that they get.
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  The people bring those flip-flops back in, so it supports communities
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  by paying them for the amount of flip-flops that they get.
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  They bring in the flip-flops to these artisans that they also hired, just
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  like, 4 Oceans, and these artisans create these animals out of them.
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  And if you've never seen them, I've got, like, a shark phone holder
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  I'm gonna put up to the camera.
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  I don't know if we're gonna show this on video.
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  There's lions, there's giraffes, there's manta rays, all different sizes.
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  You can have small, you can have medium, some of them are life-size
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  , some of them are, like, human size.
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  And they sell them to individuals, they can sell them to museums, to
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  zoos, all this kind of stuff, to kinda highlight what it's like.
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  But the, artistry that these artisans use to get lions with
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  their manes and everything like that is absolutely phenomenal.
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  And so you can create all this stuff, you can buy this and you can just
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  have it in your office or wherever that might be, or you can get it
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  as a gift and things like that.
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  You see it and you get flip-flops and other plastics out of the water.
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  People that are paid for the amount of, I think it's by
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  weight of that they bring in.
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  Artisans who are paid to create models of these or bring them to life kind of thing.
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  And then you get consumers who buy them whether they're larger and
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  they go to like a museum or somewhere where you can put art or somewhere
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  in a zoo or anything like that.
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  Or just have them in your office or give them as a gift.
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  You can do pretty much whatever you want with them.
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  So that helps get souls out of Kenya and in Kenya is where all the artisans
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  are employed, you're giving livable wages, which is a wonderful thing to do.
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  Now Follow, which I discovered online is a company that has an app
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  where you buy a bracelet and you get like an animal on it.
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  So I've, right now I'm wearing the manatee, and I think I'm
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  wearing the whale shark one.
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  And so you're buying a bracelet that goes towards to help to fund a tag
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  that is put on a whale shark or, in this case a manatee or a polar bear
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  or another like shark or a dolphin.
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  They even have land animals like gorillas and lions and tigers and
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  sloths and all these other animals.
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  And then you go on the app and they give you a profile, you add
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  it to your app, you follow that.
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  And then when the tag is done, 'cause sometimes the tags will pop off at
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  some point, it switches to another animal, and it'll tell you how
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  many followers are on that animal.
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  So you have all these people, and some of the cases they're like 35,000
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  followers for that particular animal.
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  They sell a lot.
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  They're a business that helps fund organizations do those tagging studies.
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  So a portion of the revenue or the profit goes towards those tags.
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  And it's obviously, it's not a one for one if I buy a bracelet a tag gets, put on
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  or I buy a tag or it gets to buy a tag.
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  It's once you get multiple bracelets it adds up to a tag and then you go.
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  But for 25 bucks US I can help an organization track an animal.
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  That's huge for me.
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  It empowers me.
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  I like following it.
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  I like seeing the profiles.
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  Like for the penguins, you could actually see videos of their nest if they're a
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  female or male, like taking care of their young, and then you can watch them go to
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  one specific spot in Antarctica, feed, and then come back and bring it back
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  to their babies, which is kinda cool.
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  So you have all these companies that have a very similar model.
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  You buy something, and they do something good, or part of their model,
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  like Ocean Sole, is they're doing something good as part of the product.
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  So like two of them are cleaning up the ocean, 4Oceans and Ocean Sole,
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  and then Follow is helping us better understand the ocean by allowing us
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  to contribute to buying tags for these organizations to study these animals
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  and better understand their patterns.
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  Like a lot of people, when you start doing tagging studies of like,
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  say, sharks or marine mammals, you start to find out where they go.
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  And tagging is really important.
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  That's how we know where great whites are, not only for beach safety, but for
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  just, like, regular conservation of great whites and how we've been able to study
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  them for so long and been able to bring them back from the brink of extinction.
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  Same with manatees, same with dolphins, same with tigers, and same with
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  gorillas and everything like that.
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  Having more information about where they go and finding out why they
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  go to certain spots will really improve our understanding of the
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  species and of the world, and be able to better protect those places.
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  So I think having those businesses and giving you those descriptions I hope
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  inspires you to see what you can do.
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  'Cause like, you can't rely on governments.
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  You can't always rely on nonprofit organizations to
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  be able to give you stuff.
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  And you gotta be careful with organizations who are claiming that
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  they can clean up the entire ocean, like the Ocean Cleanup Project,
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  which still hasn't been able to do it really that successfully.
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  They've been able to create some products, you know, around rivers to be
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  able to pick up trash, which is great.
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  But, cleaning up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch just hasn't happened.
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  They said they'd do it in five years.
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  It's been longer than five years, way longer than five years, and
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  they haven't been able to do that because of a specific reason, and
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  it's just very difficult to do so.
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  But these companies are doing little bit by little bit, they are supporting
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  local people in the work that they're doing, and they're being able to
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  give us something and make us feel empowered for protecting the ocean.
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  This should be the new model for businesses that are trying to do good for
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  the world and being able to turn a profit.
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  I'm not saying every one of these businesses that follow this model
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  like the three, are going to succeed, but this should be heading forward.
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  You're looking at being good for the environment, being good for
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  the people, and making profit.
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  The three Ps, right?
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  Is this how it goes?
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  I don't even remember what they were called, but it's three Ps. And I
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  think that it's important to stress that this is the way of the future.
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  You can't just make money off of stuff.
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  And I see this all the time.
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  I see, you know, energy drinks being made by social media influencers
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  and having all these like trashy products that are made from cheap
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  plastic, and they're taking the easy way out because it sells really fast.
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  What we need from entrepreneurs is to be creative, to have the ocean in mind
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  or have the planet in mind when they are creating a business to ensure that they
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  are not gonna ruin the planet even more.
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  And that we can't afford any of those products anymore.
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  We can't afford to have companies like, fashion companies
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  say, "Hey, you know what?
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  We're gonna charge a lot of money.
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  We're gonna be fashionable.
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  We're gonna try something new." That's great, but we're gonna do
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  it with child labor, and we're gonna do it really cheap, and then
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  we're gonna just make a lot of them.
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  And if you don't like it, it'll be so cheap that you'll just buy more
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  and you won't bother to return them.
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  And we'll just make money by volume.
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  That's not the way to go because that's really unfriendly to the environment.
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  It's not treating people properly who make the clothes, and we need to do
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  better is really what it comes down to.
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  We just need to do better for the environment, and we can't afford
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  companies like this starting up.
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  And to be honest, there should be regulations against it.
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  There should have some sort of environmental benefit and social
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  benefit for each company, and they should have to show that there's a
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  benefit in there because to have the alternative is just absolutely ridiculous.
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  But anyway, that's how I feel.
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  I would love to hear how you feel about this episode and about companies
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  that are starting now that are just kind of wasteful, and you can just
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  tell right off the bat they're just capitalizing off of people who just want
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  materialistic things and not really caring about the actual product and
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  stuff or the planet and what it does.
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  So I would love to hear your thoughts on that.
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  You can hit me up on my social links if you look in the show notes.
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  If you wanna support the podcast, you can please do so.
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  Speakupforblue.com/patreon.
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  It also supports my work on YouTube, on Instagram, on
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  TikTok, all that kind of stuff.
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  I've got a lot of stuff going on and probably be doing on Patreon some videos
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  just to update you on what's happening.
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  By the way, this is episode 1996.
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  I am almost at episode 2000.
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  I'll be addressing people in terms of when we get to episode 2000 of things
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  that have happened over the past 10 year, 11 years to get to 2000 episodes, and
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  also what's gonna happen going forward.
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  We'll probably do something in Patreon as well.
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  But yeah, just wanna thank you for all the support so far, and
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  we'll talk to you next week.
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  But tomorrow, we have a great episode with Alexandre Mongeon.
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  He's a Canadian, lives in the US, owns one of the largest dealers of
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  boats, talking to me about electric motors and why he thinks electric
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  motors are the wave of the future.
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  No pun intended.
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  Kind of pun intended.
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  But they are the wave of the future and why they are.
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  And so enjoy that.
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  Hit the follow button.
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  Enjoy that episode tomorrow.
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  I wanna thank you for joining me on today's episode of the How
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  to Protect the Ocean podcast.
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  I am your host, Andrew Lewin.
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  Have a great day.
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  We'll talk to you next time, and happy conservation.