Oceanic Global’s Industry Solution: The Oceanic Standard

Companies need to change their practices and are under pressure from consumers and increasing legislation on single-use plastics, but they often don’t know how. The Oceanic Standard (TOS) program works with businesses to empower them to do the right thing. 

TOS is a set of free, industry specific, research-backed resources and badge verification system for businesses to eliminate single-use plastics and responsibly manage their waste. It connects businesses directly to vetted local vendors for sustainable alternatives, and offers buying deals wherever possible. TOS is a tool to create scalable behavior change, quantify measurable impact, and support policy reform.

Through the TOS framework, local businesses are championing best practices to set a new industry standard, taking accountability for their waste, supporting local solution-oriented vendors and tackling issues impacting their community. 

In 2019, humanity is still producing more plastic than ever before. To stop single-use plastic from entering the waste stream, we need to engage key stakeholders in drastic behavioral change to shift practices.

Globally, policies are being introduced to ban single-use plastics to facilitate that shift (17 new nation-wide regulations announced in 2018), but many have been ineffective. 

The landscape of sustainable alternatives to single-use plastic items is very confusing and difficult to navigate. The plastics industry is taking advantage of the demand for more sustainable items and are flooding the market with “greenwashing” options that are not as environmentally friendly as promoted.

There is a need to identify and understand locally available alternatives to single-use plastics that take into consideration the local waste management infrastructure. Many businesses want to do the right thing, but often don’t know how.

Plastic pollution negatively impacts the 651 million people who live in Latin America & the Caribbean from the environmental destruction to the human health concerns. In these regions, the beauty of a healthy ecosystem and thriving wildlife is the backbone of the tourism industry, which provides 15,778,000 jobs (7.6% of total employment) and contributes 348.7 billion USD to respective GDPs.

TOS engages community organizations, local nonprofits, tourism boards, associations and businesses to co-create region-specific editions. 

Editions take into consideration the needs and priorities of each region. For example, our Tulum, Mexico Edition requires businesses to have legally required receipts and manifestos for recyclables, cooking oil, grease traps, and hazardous materials.   

TOS directly engages local and multinational business owners and operators in helping them find cost-effective solutions to meet sustainability goals as well as comply with any relevant legislation. TOS offers a variety of sustainable recommendations (reusable to single-use) to allow businesses to meet their demand, budget, operational needs, and align with their brand. 

TOS supports and amplifies local solution-oriented vendors by promoting their sustainable products in our resources and on our platforms in addition to directly connecting vendors with interested clients. TOS diversifies the landscape by bringing sustainable solutions to market. 

At its core, TOS functions with the interest of community residents in mind. Success through TOS results in a healthy ecosystem, defending invaluable ecosystem services including oxygen production, the health of fisheries communities rely on for food & livelihood, and coastal resiliency, as well as better products for food and drink-ware that pose fewer human health concerns.

The Oceanic Standard (TOS) program is designed to meet business and policy needs, support shifts in operational infrastructure, recommend locally available sustainable vendors, and promote best practices for responsible consumption. 

TOS has developed industry- and region-specific guides for hospitality, nightlife/festival, office spaces, boating, the music industry, and stadiums. Each resource connects businesses directly to TOS-approved vendors for cost-effective alternatives to single-use plastic products that threaten our planet, and offers purchasing deals wherever possible. 

Oceanic Global awards four tiers of TOS badges to celebrate a business’s sustainability achievements with both customers and employees.

1. Straw-Free Badge: Awarded to businesses that eliminate single-use plastic straws.

2. Sustainability Steward Badge: " eliminate three forms of single-use plastics (can include straws). 

3. Ocean Champion Badge: " eliminate six forms of single-use plastics.

4. Plastic-Free Badge: " eliminate all single-use plastics used both front-of-house and back-of-house.

TOS also offers sustainability consulting services to help businesses implement TOS and earn a badge. Consultation includes conducting a TOS Sustainability Assessment, making both operational and procurement recommendations considering existing suppliers, completing documentation to award a badge once achieved, and developing a communications and marketing strategy in addition to providing any required employee training to ensure new practices are successful. 

TOS demonstrates that b2b and b2c change is possible, and serves as a resource for political action and reform. The Oceanic Standard has been used as a toolkit to shape policy and inform industry solutions in cities and nations including: 
New York City, Ibiza, and Barbados.

Oceanic Global relies on trained TOS consultants to grow the program globally. 
Oceanic Global’s network of TOS consultants includes individuals, nonprofit partners, and aligned social enterprises or existing sustainability consultancy groups. Oceanic Global currently has a network of more than 20 trained TOS consultants globally, including strong communities in Tulum, Mexico as well as in Barbados. 

With limited resources, Oceanic Global has engaged over 300 businesses in 30 cities with 200 sustainable vendor partners around the world. Of the 20 we have engaged countries, 8 are within Latin America and the Caribbean.  

$30,000 would enable us to hire three part-time consultants and engage 100 businesses with the goal of eliminating 50 million single-use plastic items from the waste stream over only a six-month period.

TOS creates the greatest impact with the least amount of effort, help us scale it in Latin America and the Caribbean to promote local solutions to a global issue.

TOS makes it easy for businesses to do the right thing. We are providing all of the research, vetting alternatives to single-use plastics, identifying local options that work within regional waste management infrastructure constraints, and securing purchasing deals and discount codes to make these solutions more accessible to businesses. There is currently no other group providing these tailored resources and programs. 

Additionally, we are uniquely positioned as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. As a nonprofit we can work with regional government agencies and community organizations to support political reform while interfacing with businesses in the hospitality and tourism industries. We are also not bound to exclusive partnerships and can support all emerging sustainable vendors. 

Our solution is provided for free where many sustainability consultants are too expensive for businesses looking for support especially across this region. Our resources are freely available and our services are fueled by donations; however, we are also helping our local consultants in each region build their own consultancy agencies at market competitive rates. 

Our solution provides a mechanism for businesses to take action in response to growing demand from consumers and increasing legislation on single-use plastics. Motivation to shift practices already exists, TOS provides a streamlined way to facilitate that shift for businesses by directly connecting them with solutions in an easy & cost-effective way. 

One of the first businesses we’ve worked with is all-inclusive resort company, Sandals Resorts International. We worked with all 19 locations across seven Caribbean islands to help them eliminate 26.2 million single-use plastic items, which included straws, takeaway containers, coffee cups, individually wrapped condiments, and beyond. Imagine the opportunity to scale this program.

We are also working with House of Yes, nightlife venue in NYC, and have helped them fully eliminate single-use plastics adding up to 3 million single-use plastic items per year. During their last event using a reusable cup deposit model actually earned them $4,000 demonstrating the ability to serve both environmental and business needs. 

1. 300 businesses, 200 vendors, 20 consultants, 70M consumers

2. 500 businesses, 400 vendors, 50 consultants, 200M consumers

3. 5,000 businesses, 1,500 vendors, 200 consultants, 1bn consumers

Environmental

Our primary metric of success is the number of single-use plastic items diverted from the waste stream. We calculate this during our initial assessment of each business. We ask for specific procurement information regarding the quantity, price, and suppliers of each item sourced. From this and based on our success in helping businesses find alternatives, we can sum up the quantity of items replaced. 

Social

An immediate metric is the number of policies banning single-use plastics we can impact in driving this shift more broadly. We can also measure the number of community organizations engaged in efforts as well as the number of consumers touched by the businesses engaged to interpret how the behavior change of the businesses might influence lifestyle behavior changes in their consumers.

Economical

We build up each of our local consultants to launch their own consultancy agencies and can monitor how they are able to charge fees for their services. Ultimately, consultants will provide a 15% donation to Oceanic Global for all clients we refer them to directly, so we will be able to track how the program is raising money for the foundation's efforts globally. 

Our goal over the next year is to strengthen our community of consultants and vendor partners with a solid foundation in the assessment process, reporting structure, resources, and beyond. We launched this program in April of 2018 and are thrilled to see how quickly it has grown in a 1.5-yr period. We are now at a place with strong case studies and extensive network, so are ready to launch a full pilot program in a specific region or community to see the impact that a full-time person or part-time team can have with the proper funding / financial support. Over this next year, we want to finalize those air-tight case studies and launch a pilot program. 

Over the next five years, following a successful pilot we look forward to expanding the program exponentially armed with a compelling business case. Ideally within this period, sustainable alternatives have proliferated across the market and are cheaper and more widely available. 

Ultimately, we hope our services are no longer needed as products and systems have been re-designed and alternatives to single-use plastics are seen as the norm.   

Major barriers for us are a limitation of resources, including funding and labor. With part-time consultants in every location we have worked in and with funding for every group and individual we have trained, we would be able to grow this program exponentially. 

The funding from this program will be directly attributed to the salary for local part-time consultants across the region of Latin America & the Caribbean. As TOS grows in each region, it begins to catch momentum after the first few major success stories. Having funding to allow for these first initial "wins" will create a compelling case for businesses to trust our on-the-ground consultants and buy into the program, as we have seen here across the US and Europe. 

In addition, we ask for donations from all businesses we work with, we engage in charity partnerships with sustainable vendor partners who provide donations to fuel the program, we accept a 15% referral fee from consultants for direct referrals once they are net positive in revenue. Separately, we are growing fundraising efforts for the organization globally. We have just launched our grassroots Hubs Program, which has already begun to help facilitate a meaningful portion of that fundraising. 

We are expanding in this region and have close community partners in Mexico, Jamaica and Barbados to begin with. We have hosted major launch events targeted towards the hospitality industry in Tulum, Mexico and Barbados to kick-off our work there. Some of our corporate partners are also present across St. Lucia, Grenada, the Bahamas, and Turks & Caicos. We are also working with the UNDP Blue Lab to roll out this solution as a part of their Blue Economy goals in the region. 

There is much market opportunity in these places as legislation banning single-use plastics is spreading across the region, most notably Barbados announced a nation-wide ban on single-use plastics that went into effect on July 1, 2019. 

Full-time staff: 3

Part-time staff: 8

Board of advisors to the program: 7

Trained consultants: 20

Our team brings together expertise from the hospitality industry, sustainable tourism, environmental engineering, chemistry, material science, waste management, sustainability consulting, data analysis, events production, and graphic/web design. As such we are well-poised to provide sustainability solutions to businesses in hospitality & tourism industries as well as vet the validity of new products entering the market as alternatives to single-use plastics. 

EarthCheck, Oceana, WCS, Plastic Pollution Coalition, Common Ground Compost, Think Zero, Foodprint Group, Sailo, and Orca Sound Project are all partners we have co-created resources with. 

Sustainable Caribbean, Woolis Green Solutions, Razonatura, Mexico Azul, Clean Ocean Action, Sea Going Green, I Am Strawless, Plastic-Free Cambodia, Green Man Packaging, and Bye-Bye Plastic are groups helping us implement TOS as trained consultants. 

We connect businesses looking for solutions with local sustainable vendors providing those solutions. In doing so, we elevate the industry standard of practices in a given region creating a healthier environment for both people and the planet. 

We expect the program to bring in more than it takes out as consultants are able to sustain themselves on charging fees for their services and donating 15% referral fees to Oceanic Global. 

Additionally, larger businesses provide donations to the organization to fund TOS implementation in their given region. 

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The IDB Group could help us overcome our barrier of limited resources. With consultants and funding we will be able to rapidly engage more businesses, and have more data to build case studies that will demonstrate the business case for sustainability. This funding will also allow us to engage much smaller businesses in coastal communities that would otherwise not have access to these resources and support. 

With the IDB Group, we could launch full pilot of the program in a specific community to directly track the outputs from given inputs to test if our goals are feasible and to quantify the needed resources for successful growth of the program in the regions where it is most desperately needed. 

We are grateful to all of the partners that have helped us build this program to-date, and are looking for further partners who can help increase the visibility of TOS as well as our implementation capacity. Groups that can act as consultants or facilitate connections with businesses in the hospitality and tourism industries are of greatest interest.