Economist Impact’s 10th World Ocean Summit wrapped up successfully on March 1st, having convened more than 1,000 delegates and almost 200 high-level speakers in Lisbon to discuss how to build a sustainable ocean economy. My six key takeaways from the World Ocean Summit are summarised here.

Economist Impact's 10th annual World Ocean Summit and Expo in Lisbon in late February and early March will feature at least 180 speakers and 1,500 attendees with a focus on “Tackling the greatest challenges facing the ocean: climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution”. Ahead of the summit the World Ocean Initiative highlights blogs from some of the speakers.

Economist Impact's World Ocean Summit (February 27th-March 1st in Lisbon) celebrates its 10th anniversary this month. I am looking forward to moderating many exciting sessions at the summit, on diverse topics from closing the finance gap to meet SDG14 and scaling private-sector blue finance to harnessing “blue biotechnology” and developing blue carbon projects.

The World Ocean Summit in Lisbon at the end of February and early March will bring the ocean community together to inspire ocean solutions. This year will be vital in making progress on building a sustainable ocean economy in order to tackle the three interconnected planetary crises: climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution.

The ocean is the world’s largest carbon sink and our biggest hope in the fight against climate change. Tune in to the latest episode of Beyond Business with Wärtsilä as I talk with Atte Palomäki and Andrea Morgante about how to build a sustainable ocean economy.

As 2022 draws to a close, Economist Impact's World Ocean Initiative celebrates some of the key achievements of the year, including progress on a global plastics treaty and the acceleration of blue carbon markets.

I have published a blog that summarises my keynote speech at the recent 30th anniversary celebration of the John Nurminen Foundation. It focuses on shifting the ocean narrative from negative connotations to positive ones.

I was invited by the John Nurminen Foundation to provide the keynote speech at its 30th anniversary in Helsinki. The foundation does lots of great work to save the Baltic Sea and its heritage for future generations. I was honoured to speak about the opportunities of building a sustainable ocean economy in the Baltic Sea and beyond.

I was in Halifax, Canada to moderate seven sessions at Economist Impact's World Ocean Tech and Innovation Summit, including sessions on blue economy resilience, innovation alliances, changes in the Arctic, blue carbon to mitigate climate change, and big data and predictive analytics. We also announced the winners of the World Ocean Initiative’s Ocean Changemakers Challenge.

World Maritime Day is celebrated in September to focus attention on the importance of shipping and other maritime activities. It provides an opportunity to reflect on how the shipping industry can play a critical role in leveraging ‘greener’ innovations towards solving decarbonisation challenges.

I moderated the session “How Can We Develop Blue Economy Opportunities?” at the Virtual Island Summit 2022, organised by Island Innovation. Following an opening keynote by Dr Keith Mitchell, former prime minister of Grenada, I was joined by four excellent panellists.

I have been attending World Water Week in Stockholm this week. Today is the final day, and I will be speaking during the closing panel on “What’s Next?”. I will talk about the latest trends when it comes to innovation and societal transformations, drawing on research from Economist Impact and the World Ocean Initiative.

I‘m attending World Water Week in Stockholm this week. Today I will be speaking as part of the talk show “From words into action: Financing from source to sea”. I will be joined by Ruth Mathews, senior manager at SIWI (Stockholm International Water Institute) and moderator Eric Paglia of KTH Royal Institute of Technology.

International Youth Day is observed each year on August 12th. This month Economist Impact's World Ocean Initiative celebrates past winners of our Ocean Changemakers Challenge. These young talents are all working on solutions for a sustainable blue economy.

The World Ocean Initiative team was on the ground last month at the UN Ocean Conference in Lisbon and the UN World Oceans Day events in New York. Read more for an overview of recent coverage from the World Ocean Initiative.

Today I moderated a panel discussion on “Security of subsea data cables and marine protected areas", organised by the Atlantic Centre, SafeSeas, the University of Copenhagen and the Institute for Security Studies (Pretoria). This was an official side event of the UN Ocean Conference.

I was interviewed for BBC World's World Business Report on the latest developments at the UN Ocean Conference in Lisbon.

I’m at the UN Ocean Conference in Lisbon this week. Today I moderated a session on “Unlocking Corporate Blue Finance” in the SDG Media Zone.

For World Oceans Day I moderated a World Ocean Summit Insight Hour on ocean innovation. The United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-30) has started. However, the UN Sustainable Development Goals on life below water (SDG14) remains the most underfunded goal. The ocean needs innovative, passionate leaders to drive the sustainable blue economy.

Today is World Oceans Day! Economist Impact’s World Ocean Initiative is a media partner of the United Nations World Oceans Day. Following a presentation on “The value of a living ocean” by Ralph Chami, I moderated the in-person panel discussion on “A Revitalized Ocean Economy” at UN Headquarters in New York.