Ocean Exchange, a leader in supporting the acceleration of innovative solutions for healthy oceans and the sustainable blue economy, announces the selection of semi-finalists vying for the prestigious 2022 Neptune Award, Wallenius Wilhelmsen Orcelle® Award, and Ocean Exchange Innovation Award for Transportation and Logistics Hubs (Transportation Hub Award). Each of these three awards carries prize money of $100,000 and will be conferred at the organization’s upcoming event, which takes place October 23-25 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
The Ocean Exchange Solutions Review Team will now review the applications submitted by the semi-finalists and choose the ultimate 24 finalists who will travel to Florida to present their solution at the event. Delegates representing business, academia, government, and non-profits will select the three monetary winners based on their presentations there.
Solutions being developed by the semi-finalists address an array of industry and technology categories spanning aquaculture and marine habitat to energy and vessel/port operations, and data/robotics to digitalization, emissions reduction, plastics use reduction/recycling, and clean water.
Countries represented include Australia, Bulgaria, Canada, Ireland, Israel, the Netherlands, Portugal, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Tanzania, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom and the United States.
“Ocean Exchange is proud to announce that our Solutions Review Team has chosen 51 companies from around the world as semi-finalists. This record number of applicants—an increase of 35% over previous events—reflects not only the expansion of our awards program with this year’s addition of the Ocean Exchange Transportation Hub Innovation Award, but also the tremendous interest in technologies and solutions that will help protect the priceless resource that our oceans and the Blue Economy represent. We are proud to be at the forefront of this effort, backed by the invaluable support of sponsors and leading industry experts from around the globe,” said Millicent Pitts, Chief Executive Officer and Executive Director of the Ocean Exchange.
The Neptune Award 2022 will be given to the solution that advances our understanding of the ocean and helps minimize our impact on these resources, even while using them for human benefit, resulting in more resilient bodies of water including healthy marine life and coastlines.
Wallenius Wilhelmsen’s 2022 Orcelle Award reflects the company’s statement of purpose, “sustainable logistics for a world in motion,” and its view of sustainability as a broad theme that assigns equal importance to environmental and social aspects. Accordingly, the 2022 Orcelle Award will go to the solution that creates most sustainable value for its business in regard to social, community or environmental issues, whether on land or at sea.
The Transportation Hub Award will be given to the solution that advances ocean-, inland-, and air- ports and other logistics hubs, seeking innovations that make ports/hubs more sustainable with technologies that support clean water and air, conservation of precious natural resources near ports/hubs, efficient road/rail/warehousing supporting the ports, and state-of-the-art sustainable port-hub land management.
“This year’s event marks the 11th anniversary of the Ocean Exchange awards program. Since the beginning, we have always been focused on searching for and rewarding Solutions Inspiring Action. These are innovative, proactive and globally scalable solutions with working prototypes that can leap across industries, economies and cultures–innovations that generate economic growth and increased productivity, while reducing the use of nature’s resources and waste. It is so encouraging to see that our approach has been embraced by so many promising young companies around the world,” added Ms. Pitts.
