Martin Koehring - Global Sustainability and Ocean Expert

Earth Day, celebrated every year on April 22nd, is dedicated to highlighting the importance of action to protect and restore ecosystems around the world. Ocean ecosystems are vital for a thriving planet. Governments and private-sector investors are increasingly keen to invest in seagrass, mangroves and other important ocean ecosystems that reduce and store CO2 emissions.

I will be a faculty member for the Food & Sustainability Certificate Programme provided by the European Institute for Innovation and Sustainability and starting in May 2021.

Our World Ocean Summit Virtual Week concluded successfully last week. We welcomed more than 8,500 registered participants and more than 6,000 active users on our virtual platform during the week. Here I summarise some key conclusions and observations, from the importance of ocean literacy and nature-based solutions to the need for collaboration and investable innovations.

On November 26th 2020 I presented The Economist Intelligence Unit's Food Sustainability Index as part of a panel discussion on the science of characterising and assessing the transition towards more sustainable food systems.

October 22nd marked World Energy Day. The quest for energy has always been a balancing act between the benefits and costs of creation or extraction, storage, transportation and waste disposal. As populations have grown, humans have searched for new energy sources. Wave, tidal and wind energy are now part of the green energy mix.

In a conversation for Therma's Point 01 podcast I spoke with co-founder Aaron Cohen about how reinvigorating the ocean economy will lead to sustained and equitable economic growth. 

On September 10th I presented the Food Sustainability Index during a webinar on teaching the complexity of food sustainability. The webinar explored how to introduce the FSI EDU toolkit in university curricula.

As part of the Blue Recovery Series, the World Ocean Initiative hosted a webinar on the roles of science, innovation and investment in establishing a sustainable ocean economy in the post-coronavirus period.

On September 8th I will be moderating a session on “A Sustainable Ocean Economy” at the Founders Forum Climate Summit during London Tech Week. I will be joined by a great panel of ocean investment experts.

On 20 August I was interviewed on The Peggy Smedley Show, a leading podcast on digital transformation that averages 115,000 listeners. The discussion revolved around sustainability in the seas, why we need to stop thinking of the economy as linear and why sustainability is a business issue, amongst other items.