This week is World Ocean Day! I am looking forward to moderating two panels on "Financing the Growth of the Blue Economy", organised by Simmons & Simmons and the Marine Conservation Society.

Did you know that the ocean flows through all 17 of the UN SDGs? I spoke with Tim Silverwood from the Ocean Impact Organisation on the Ocean Impact Podcast about how the ocean is a solution to solving global challenges.

After 11 and a half years I have decided to leave The Economist Group to pursue a new exciting adventure. It’s been an incredible journey! More about my new destination soon, but now is the time to reminisce about more than a decade at this great media company.

This Saturday is Earth Day. To celebrate this occasion I will deliver the closing keynote on ocean sustainability at the 2023 Earth Day Symposium hosted by the World Business Angels Investment Forum (WBAF) Miami Office.

My article on the "Three reasons why 2023 could be the year of blue carbon" has been published in UN Today, the official magazine of United Nations international civil servants in Geneva. The article explores how blue carbon is vital in addressing the three interconnected planetary crises of climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution.

Economist Impact’s tenth annual World Ocean Summit & Expo took place from February 27th to March 1st in Lisbon, Portugal. The summit featured 188 speakers in more than 50 sessions across the three days, attracting more than 1,500 registered attendees. The month of March also celebrated International Women's Day and Women's History Month.

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 recently spoke about the importance of ocean ecosystems at the Valuing Natural Capital Conference 2022 in Geneva, organised by Geneva Macro Labs. My summary blog has just been published on Economist Impact's Sustainability Project.

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.

Next week I will speak at the "Valuing Natural Capital Conference" in Geneva, hosted by Geneva Macro Labs in collaboration with ILO, UNITAR, UNCDF, Harvard University, FootPrint Coalition and ServiceNow. My presentation will focus on the role of marine natural capital in mitigating climate change, drawing on insights from my work leading Economist Impact's World Ocean Initiative.

It was encouraging to see the source-to-sea approach making waves at this year’s World Water Week, organised by Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI). However, ocean solutions could still be featured more prominently. Here are my five takeaways.