OCEANR and UOCEAN
OCEANR and UOCEAN form pioneering and powerful mangrove carbon offsetting partnership
Eco-friendly apparel company, OCEANR, is taking its sustainability credentials to the next level by teaming up with UOCEAN: a pioneering, global-reaching, non-profit organisation with 33 sites worldwide which has a goal to clean up, protect and restore the world’s oceans by 2050.
Based in Cork, Ireland, OCEANR was founded by keen environmentalist and water sports obsessive Tom Cotter and has been making waves within yachting ever since, thanks to its reputation for creating sustainable, customized, comfortable, stylish and lightweight apparel for superyachts – Endeavour, Legend and Scott Free, to name just a few – luxury resorts and private clients all around the world. OCEANR works with incredible brand partners such as Richard Branson’s Necker Island, Ritz Carlton and Four Seasons worldwide, to achieve a greater impact for the sustainable future of our planet.
OCEANR showcased the best of its eco-conscious high-end apparel for superyachts as the newly launched sustainability hub at the Monaco Yacht Show, including a range of bespoke eco-friendly crew uniforms created for the crew of the popular Sanlorenzo charter motor yacht Nirvana. It was here that OCEANR first connected with UOCEAN, and the game-changing collaboration came to fruition.
Established by the UK-based BAME-led charity, the Vayyu Foundation, with the enterprising Chris Desai at the helm, the UOCEAN 50 initiative pledges to remove #1BILLIONKILOS of marine plastics by 2030. This is a goal shared and put into practice by OCEANR, who use recycled polyester made from post-consumer plastic across their collections. To date, OCEANR have reclaimed 1.5 million plastic bottles through the use of their eco-fabrics and funded the removal of 1kg of marine litter for every core garment purchased.
OCEANR’s founder, Tom Cotter, explains how the partnership will be put into practice through carbon offsetting. “There is a lot of talk around carbon offsetting as part of ‘corporate social responsibility’ by businesses, but we wanted to ensure that ours was real, and that we could really track and see this in action, by teaming up with an initiative which has a tangible global impact, such as UOCEAN 50.”
He continues: “At OCEANR, as well as doing carbon offsetting for our shipping and products, we also take a head count of our staff across both Ireland and our factory in Riga and calculate how much carbon they create as individuals. The goal is then to offset this with UOCEAN – Chris Desai and his team will plant between 200-400 mangroves on a monthly basis in Indonesia to offset the carbon we produce. This quarter, this added up to a grand total of 2,700 kilos of carbon.”
As well as both founders, Chris Desai and Tom Cotter, having a shared background in fashion, OCEANR and UOCEAN are united in their passion for engaging communities around the world in conservation efforts, and in their fight against marine plastics and climate change.
Through their work, UOCEAN and OCEANR are dedicated to working with a broad range of individuals, businesses and communities around the world to forge a circular economy through the removal of marine plastics, and the promotion of ocean health. As UOCEAN’s founder, Chris Desai highlights: “We have a reputation as a young, dynamic and disruptive charity, aiming to de-colonise conservation by working across communities and uniting people against plastic pollution in our rivers, canals, beaches and coastlines.”
He continues: “As an organisation, we have done more cleanups and have more volunteers than some of the biggest charities in the UK. Our growth over the past four years has been exceptional, just like that of OCEANR – this means it is the perfect time for us to come together and see what we can achieve when we join forces.” Finally, for OCEANR’s founder, Tom Cotter, it is the personal element of the new collaboration which shines through. “We have been looking for a carbon offsetting partner to support mangrove planting for a very long time, and it is very reassuring to have found somebody that we can trust completely to go on this journey with us.”
He continues: “By working with Chris and his team in Indonesia, it is wonderful that we can actually know the names of the six or eight people who are planting the mangroves for our carbon offsetting – it is so much more personal, and they love what they are doing: the community element of this project is massive for us.”
