Welcome to our February Newsletter!
Now that January is over we can stop saying happy new year, and start saying we can’t believe how fast this year is flying by.
Oceans at Davos:
We’ve commented in recent newsletters that oceans have received increasing visibility at global gatherings, most recently at COP28’s
Ocean Pavilion. On first blush, that trend wasn’t as pronounced during Davos, with AI and elections
dominating the headlines. On closer inspection though, there were numerous positive developments, including (with thanks to the World Economic Forum team):
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Catalyzing the Mangrove Breakthrough: This session advanced the initiative led by NGOs, governments, leading companies and financial institutions to secure
these super trees, building on the launch of the
Mangrove Breakthrough Financial Roadmap
at UNFCCC COP28.
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Nature-positive Strategy: What should your sector’s priority actions be?: This event convened around 150 participants from corporations, financial
institutions, civil society and academia, and included 12 breakout discussions representing different marine-based and land-based industries.
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History-making on the High Seas: Panel that explored the historic
High Seas Treaty
and its impact on business and nature, exploring how businesses can pursue ambitious partnerships with other sectors to help implement the treaty and ensure best practices that
promote ocean health.
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Live from the Deep: Nothing quite like submarines piping in from the briny depths! A historic session brought the deep ocean (340 meters depth) to the slopes
of Davos in partnership with OceanX, highlighting the excitement of ocean exploration and how ocean tech is
enabling a sustainable blue economy.
A Few Calendar Highlights for 2024:
A string of conferences paves the road to Nice, France for the next UN Ocean Conference in
June 2025. We plan on participating in a number of these events, including the Blue Ocean Investment Summit, Monaco World Oceans Week and the Economist’s World Ocean Summit (see
links at end of newsletter). Here’s a helpful roadmap from
our friend Daniela Fernandez at Sustainable Ocean Alliance. In addition, mark your calendars for the 8th Annual World Oceans Week at The Explorers Club, June 3rd-8th in NYC.
Several of us are involved with this event on a personal basis – it’s going to be awesome, details to follow!
Upcoming Investor Gathering:
On February 15th we’ll be hosting a “hybrid” gathering, both in person at The Explorers Club in NYC and by Zoom, during which we’ll feature two early stage blue economy companies.
If you’re signed up as an accredited or institutional investor with us, you’ll receive an invitation next week – if you’re not, and would like to join, please reach out to us at
contact@investableoceans.com. In addition, Ted is co-hosting an invite-only event for Impact of Networking (aka Impact of Beer) immediately following our investor gathering – if
you would like to learn more please reach out to Ted at ted@investableoceans.com. Important note: neither of these events are endorsed by or affiliated with The Explorers Club, we
are only using that space as a venue.
1000 Ocean Startups Steering Committee:
We’re also delighted to announce our deeper engagement with 1000 Ocean Startups, the global
coalition of ocean innovation ecosystem leaders committed to “backing at least 1000 ocean startups by 2030.” Earlier this week we joined the Steering Committee along with the
brilliant Milly PItts of Ocean Exchange, and the next day were fortunate to become a Co-Chair of the
Steering Committee – partnering with ocean innovation pioneers Ingrid Maurstad and Katapult Ocean. We look
forward to working with these colleagues, as well as the 40+ members of 1000OS and Ron Tardiff/Sam Zak from the World Economic Forum who host our initiative through the
“Lighthouse” under the Ocean Action Agenda.
Don’t Stop Scrolling:
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An original quote on the relevance of the oceans to the new 'From Risk to Reward' report from Dr. Nathaniel Matthews, one of the report authors and CEO of Global
Resilience Partnership
- A bold engineering project that seeks to prevent glacial melt and slow sea level rise
- A new report from Our Shared Seas that presents trends on global ocean funding over the past decade-plus
As always, we thank you for your support and look forward to an exciting year ahead for the oceans!
The Investable Oceans Team
