The World Ocean Council’s (WOC) Sustainable Ocean Summit (SOS) will take place November 20 to 22, 2019 in Paris. SOS is acknowledged as the international business conference on ocean sustainable development, science and stewardship.

This year’s theme is “Investing in Ocean Futures: Finance and Innovation for the Blue Economy.”

Program details are available here.

The Challenge
The ocean is an interconnected global ecosystem supporting a wide range of uses. Maintaining a healthy ocean requires responsible stewardship by all users.

Concerns about the impacts of economic activity on ocean health from a growing range and level of commercial uses are on the rise. These concerns may limit industry access to marine areas and resources.

Ocean users are increasingly being held accountable by governments and NGOs for the state of the ocean. Continued ocean access and use will increasingly require the social license to operate–above and beyond simple regulatory compliance–and participation in the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

The best efforts by a single company or an entire sector will not be enough to address the cumulative impacts on the interconnected marine ecosystem from growing use across the sectors. Companies dependent on the ocean can achieve business value from working with others to address shared challenges regarding sustainable development, science and stewardship.

The Alliance
The World Ocean Council (WOC) is the international, cross-sectoral industry leadership alliance for “corporate ocean responsibility.”

The WOC brings together leadership companies from the diverse ocean business community to achieve the business benefits of cross-sectoral leadership and collaboration on sustainability.

The WOC develops global platforms to address cross-cutting ocean business and sustainability challenges, e.g., ocean policy and governance; marine planning; marine debris; marine sound; marine mammal impacts; water pollution; data collection; sea level rise and extreme event impacts; priority regions (such as the Arctic and Indian Ocean); and investment for ocean sustainable development.

The Invitation
Responsible ocean companies are invited to join the growing number of organizations distinguishing themselves as leaders in corporate ocean responsibility through the WOC.

In addition to the 75+ WOC members from the diverse ocean business community, the WOC network includes 35,000+ ocean industry stakeholders around the world.

Learn more at www.sustainableoceansummit.org.