Global Ocean Resilience Innovation Challenge(ORIC) announces final five projects

Nearly eight months of exploration for innovative projects in coastal resilience is finally over. With support from the Swiss Re Foundation and the UK government’s Blue Planet Fund and a focus on gender, equity and human rights, this edition of the Ocean Resilience Innovation Challenge(ORIC) has announced five community-led financial solutions as winnters that are designed to reduce ocean risk for the most vulnerable while protecting biodiversity. In addition to financial support, the winners will receive customised mentoring to maximise their business models’ potential for impact, scalability and investability, such as support in refining their proposed solutions to ensure that local stakeholders’ needs are met and developing a roadmap for implementation. The winners are all set to receive incubator support from the Ocean Risk and Resilience Action Alliance to scale the impact of their work, actively contributing to ORRAA’s goal to drive USD$500 million of investment into coastal and ocean Nature-based Solutions, to improve the resilience of 250 million people in coastal areas around the world by 2030.

Swiss Re Foundation is a proud partner of the initiative and wishes the winners success in their mission at building coastal resilience.

The five winning projects:

Abalobi, South Africa – A social enterprise seeking to develop thriving small-scale fishing communities in Africa and beyond. Through its technology, Abalobi can connect small-scale fishers directly with consumers ensuring a fair, transparent income for the fisher, and fully traceable “Fish With A Story” for the consumer. They are based in South Africa, but their projects are located across Africa.  The envisaged financial product will allow fishers to save towards pre-defined targets (such as repairing or replacing fishing equipment).  They can contribute as much or as little as they like and at different times. Fishers will be able to elect to divert a portion of their income into a savings account through the Abalobi Fisher app.  https://abalobi.org

Aqua-Farms Organization (AFO), Tanzania – A youth-led, non-governmental organisation (NGO) based in Tanzania that aims to create resilient coastal communities by focusing on marine habitat restoration, improving fish markets, as well as innovation and research toward expanding livelihood opportunities while preserving biodiversity. If successful, ORIC II will support AFO roll out tubular net seaweed farming technology through helping to facilitate microcredit to purchase equipment such as boats, special nets, buoys, anchors and pipes.  It will also create a village community bank and help mark for seaweed hygiene products such as soap, shampoo and lotions and food products including juice, jam, seaweed sticks, salads, cakes and noodles. Its goal is to expand the technology through financing 750 farmers through 50 farming groups in 2026.  The seaweed is harvested by trained and skilled women.  https://afo.or.tz

INVERSA Leathers, Mexico – This organisation manufactures the world’s first regenerative leather. Made from invasive lionfish, which can destroy local marine life, INVERSA Leathers helps solve an environmental crisis and helps fashion be more sustainable.  INVERSA Leathers is based in Florida USA, but the shortlisted project will build well-equipped fishing cooperatives in Quintana Roo, Mexico, through underwriting fishers’ risk with a 100% catch-to-cash guarantee, financing the upfront re-tooling expenses for fishers to hunt and catch lionfish and offering premium incentives and prompt payment timelines. https://www.inversaleathers.com

Satsense Solutions, India – A start-up that uses satellite remote sensing and geospatial analytics to address the challenges of sustainable development and climate change. Its project de-risks sustainable tourism and supports the economic development of the Sundarbans region in eastern India. They have an office in the UK, but the projects are in India. This project quantifies the risk of coastal erosion and flooding at a local level, enabling insurance companies to develop and design new insurance products. Providing risk mitigation options for property owners and developers. As an example, insurance products can be offered exclusively (or at a lower premium) to properties that have reduced risk, such as those with mangrove cover or similar natural barriers in place. The Sundarbans is an area of extreme poverty that is climate vulnerable. Sustainable economic development in this region could lift tens of thousands of people out of extreme poverty, while also ensuring the natural capital is conserved.  https://satsense.co

Save the Waves, Mexico, Peru, Maldives – An international non-profit dedicated to protecting surf ecosystems across the globe through a unique combination of protected area creation, stewardship and grassroots mobilisation. Save The Waves will work with local surfing communities and economies to incentivise the protection and conservation of surf ecosystems, while creating an innovative insurance model where revenue can be sustained if there is a change or loss in the ecosystem function that creates the surf break, that ultimately pays communities for loss of revenue due to coastal development or climate disaster affecting the surf ecosystem.  https://www.savethewaves.org/

The ORIC program has set out not only to support entrepreneurs, but also to develop internally to support entrepreneurs more effectively in delivering their products and services sooner, with a bigger impact and a more robust solution. To support the ORIC program and its participants, Swiss Re expertise was provided both for the jury and for revisiting the strategic plan. Thereby, ORIC has sharpened its aspiration and focus to build solutions and a holistic ecosystem of partners, investors, mentors, business schools and entrepreneurs for ocean resilience. It identified what will make its operating model more efficient in reaching those goals, more outcome-driven and its impact more measurable. ORIC will establish a regular review cycle assessing progress, building on learnings, and setting focus and future development priorities.

By supporting entrepreneurs and their solutions while continuously evolving internally, ORIC has embarked on a journey bound to contribute tremendously to the development of this sector and build resilience for coastal communities and ecosystems.

Relevant links

Ocean Resilience Innovation Challenge - Ocean Risk Alliance

Attracting investment in resilient coasts | Swiss Re (swissrefoundation.org)