The Blue Economy is the New Frontier.
It was exhilarating to be at the 2025 United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC3) in Nice, France, where over 15,000 people from 170 countries gathered to officially declare the Blue Economy as the New Frontier. Co-hosted by France and Costa Rica, the event brought together a diverse group of leaders—scientists, sustainability experts, CEOs, investors, youth activists, and Indigenous communities—all united in the mission to accelerate ocean climate action and mobilize all stakeholders to achieve U.N. Sustainable Development Goal #14: Life Below Water.
The conference was a true testament to the power of global collaboration, with over 100,000 visitors engaging with educational exhibits. Together, they pledged more than $10 billion for ocean initiatives and adopted the Nice Ocean Action Plan. Daniela Fernandez launched her new venture, VELAMAR, with a bold goal of mobilizing $2.5 trillion for the Blue Economy transition. Prince Albert hosted the Blue Economy & Finance Forum, demonstrating how these investments will help turn the blue transformation into a reality.
Thanks to their collective leadership, the financial goals set for the UN Ocean Decade (2021-2030) are within reach, and the Blue Economy is on track to become a driving force for vibrant global change.
Our Oceans: The Great Unknown – and The New Frontier
For too long, oceans have been neglected. As Dr. Sylvia Earle put it in TIME magazine, “Ignorance, complacency, and lack of awareness that the ocean is essential to everyone” is the biggest barrier to ocean conservation. Every breath we take, every drop of water we drink, we are connected to the ocean.”
Thanks to Dr. Earle’s groundbreaking work, oceans are finally getting the attention they deserve. In 2014, the Stone Soup Leadership Institute honored her with the Cronkite Ocean Award on Martha’s Vineyard. This year, we presented the Cronkite Ocean Award 2025 to James Ellsmoor at UNOC3 for championing islands on the front lines who are working together to create ocean solutions through Island Innovations.
At UNOC3 we presented Dr. Earle with the Institute’s Sustainable Career Pathways Curriculum, inspired by the bokok, Stone Soup for a Sustainable World. These stories feature 
young Blue Economy innovators like Daniela Fernandez (U.S.) and James Ellsmoor (Portugal), François van den Abeele (Spain), Angelique Pouponneau (Seychelles), Gary Bencheghib (Bali), Nainoa Thompson (Hawaii), Cruz Erdman (New Zealand), and Perry Raso (US). Dr. Earle was delighted to hear how we’re empowering teachers to educate the next generation with our video-based lesson plans with Language Arts and STEM activities, sustainability innovations, and sustainable career pathways.
The Blue Economy: Championed by Islands, Led by Pioneers
The Blue Economy originated at the Rio+20 in 2012 when island nations demanded that their unique challenges be highlighted in a sustainable ocean-based development plan. Championed by island pioneers like Fiji, the Bahamas, Palau, Seychelles, and Indonesia, the Blue Economy gained momentum when EU countries — France, Germany, Portugal, Norway, Spain, Italy, Greece, The Netherlands, Denmark, Poland, and Sweden — joined in focusing first on “blue growth” in 2012 and then on a “sustainable blue economy” in 2021.
Our Journey in the Blue Economy: Learning From Islands to Think Globally, Act Locally
The Institute’s experience with our island initiatives (1996-2023) mirrors this evolution: through this work we have seen first-hand the devasting impact of climate change — from the mangroves of Vieques, to Virgin Gorda’s coral reefs, Martha’s Vineyard’s fish stock, Hawaii’s food security issues and endangered islands in the Philippines. We’ve been impressed by the incredible ability of island people to adapt; their creative capacity for responding and their inspiring ingenuity and resilience in fighting against overwhelming odds. Through our customized leadership initiatives, we’ve built bridges with business, education, and community leaders and have empowered their young people to envision their islands’ future and design roadmaps with concrete action plans to share with their leaders and engage their communities.
Blue Economy Workforce Case Studies & Lessons Learned
Each time we embark on a new initiative, we apply the lessons learned from previous programs. And every time we hear the same resounding message – we must invest in educating our young people for the new green & blue economies so they can protect, preserve and rebuild their island communities. Up until now, students haven’t been aware of the tremendous opportunities in the Blue Economy – right in their own communities. And while students are eager to pursue these jobs, they are handicapped by well-intentioned academic leaders with antiquated education systems that are still directing students to outdated 20th century jobs – beyond their communities.
In Hawaii: Governor Ige made history in 2015 by signing legislation setting the state’s goal for 100% renewable energy by 2045 – the first in the nation. The governor gave generous incentives to start-ups from Singapore and Korea to invest in Hawaii’s vision by providing them with precious land where they could build incubators. Unfortunately, when these companies tried to scale their innovations, they were faced with an under-educated future workforce. Hawaii lost more than its valuable partners and their investments in the islands: it lost momentum in realizing its goal by 2045 as well as precious future jobs in this new economy.
That same year, we embarked on a series of initiatives to help develop an educated workforce for these renewable energy jobs. Our youth leaders championed the passing of the nation’s first Sustainability Resolution which requires all public schools in Hawaii to offer students at least one course on sustainability. In partnership with Chambers of Commerce and local schools, we conducted Job Shadow Days so young people could learn from local business and government leaders about the challenges and opportunities in this transition to a sustainable economy – and their future jobs. In partnership with Design Thinking Hawaii, we engaged educators, business, cultural, community and youth leaders to envision a Sustainable Education course that aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDG) and met state standards. To implement this course, we had to overcome the harsh reality of the lack of STEM teachers (due to lowest teacher pay and highest cost of living). With funding from Hawaii’s Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism, we built our first online Sustainable Education Platform with resources for elementary. middle and high schools to bring STEM activities and place-based, hands-on learning experiences with local sustainability organizations into their classrooms.
In New Bedford, Massachusetts – When this small town made national news in 2016 with the announcement that they would receive $4.6 billion — the first federal investment in offshore wind energy — local teachers reached out to ask, “How can we prepare our students for these jobs?” We shared with them the teaching tools and online course we had developed in Hawaii. We met with local business leaders to learn how they were preparing for this huge investment in their community. “What is the most needed job?” we asked, and the Economic Development Board’s Port Authority emphatically answered, “Welders!” But the only welding school was in another state: Newport, RI at the U.S. Naval War College. We helped build bridges with our next initiative.
Newport, Rhode Island: In partnership with Innovate Newport, we surveyed Blue Economy business, government, education and youth leaders about the challenges and opportunities for the transition to a sustainable economy. We then conducted a Design-a-Thon inviting them to envision a roadmap for how they might collaborate among various industries and across state-lines to build a regional Blue Economy workforce development pipeline that would maximize their ability to succeed in the transition to a sustainable economy.
The biggest issue facing the Blue Economy is certainly that blue technology companies just aren’t educating enough people around the world in the fields that are necessary to sustain this. So I think there’s a lot of companies that would be interested in what the Institute is doing around workforce development and developing that pipeline of talent.” Toby Stapleton, Blue Venture Forum
Fall River, Massachusetts: We developed another building block for the roadmap — when a nationally recognized water management certificate training program at a local community college was threatened with closure due to lack of enrollment. At the same time, the mayor of this economically depressed city was struggling to support local clean water management companies who were seeking trained employees for local jobs. In partnership with the CTE (Career Technical Education) Environmental Science teacher, we helped develop a dual-enrollment program so that high school students could be trained for good paying jobs upon graduation. We then custom-designed the first online program to explore other sustainable career pathways in the Blue Economy.
We’ve come to see that community colleges too often invest their marketing dollars in more traditional service- oriented jobs. They then complain that students don’t sign up for their sustainability courses. But young people are searching for these courses – especially if they can be linked to internships, apprenticeships and green and blue jobs. If community colleges directed more marketing resources to promote these courses, they would be full.
Martha’s Vineyard (MA) – In partnership with the Martha’s Vineyard Commission we expanded their comprehensive Island Plan to include youth voices. The Martha’s Vineyard Youth Leadership used another building block from our four-year demonstration project in Vieques, Puerto Rico. We customized a year-round leadership program that built bridges with youth, local companies and seasoned residents with a Job Shadow Day, Sustainability Tours and Summits with Leadership Service Projects. These youth were empowered to envision a Sustainable Martha’s Vineyard; then, with the MV Commission’s cartographer, they designed a Sustainable Vineyard Map to share their vision with the island’s decision-makers and summer elite at the prestigious Cronkite Awards in Edgartown.
In all our initiatives, business is our strategic partner. We listen to their needs so they can help recruit, hire and train local youth for their companies. We’ve worked with local companies, government agencies, and academic institutions to develop customized programs to identify and develop strategies to address their workforce development needs.
The Institute’s Job Shadow Day is an essential building block in our initiatives. Originally developed in partnership with the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce in the early 90’s, it has had a tremendous impact on high school and community college students nationwide – as they are exposed to the world of work and meet professionals and learn about their career journeys. This is a pivotal time in students’ lives to expand their thinking about possible career opportunities and to influence their decision-making process about their future education.
Since 2020 we’ve tailored this seminal program to invest in the transition to a sustainable economy with a Green Job Shadow Day and a Blue Job Shadow Day. We invite students to explore sustainable career pathways by matching them with sustainability practitioners in a wide variety of fields. Our Business Survey measures local companies’ needs for workforce development training. We can then demonstrate to community colleges the importance of adjusting their academic offerings to offer sustainability-oriented certificates that support the local companies that are hoping to hire local youth for local jobs.
California: At the Institute’s Blue Job Shadow Day 2025 in partnership with the College of Marin we discovered that Blue Economy leaders were struggling to hire, train and house local people for local jobs. It was disconcerting to learn that a 40-year-old company like Hog Island Co. with $35 million in revenues didn’t have access to local workforce training programs. Aquaculture is a booming industry — with $400 billion projected in the US by 2030 — it is one of the fastest growing industries in the Blue Economy. Hog Island could grow – and provide more jobs, if only there were aquaculture certification programs offered at the community college. “Once a leader, California is lagging in the Blue Economy,” says Hog Island’s Co-Founder Terry Sawyer. “We need to learn from other countries like France about how to embrace this incredible opportunity.”
Our Blue Economy Map is designed to help business, government and education leaders begin to imagine how they might collaborate to build a Blue Economy pipeline by increasing academic and workforce development opportunities so local youth can protect, preserve and nurture their communities. At the culmination of this initiative, we created the Blue Economy Showcase which features the Business Survey, Interns Report to Community College and the community’s response.
The Blue Economy Workforce: Investing in this New Frontier
As the Blue Economy New Frontier gains momentum, the greatest challenge is the need for a road map so we can build a new pipeline by educating our students for these jobs. With our internship for community college students, we expanded our online platform to develop ten Sustainable Career Pathways that provides key information about entry, mid, and advanced level jobs with the education requirements and workforce development opportunities, projected jobs and salary ranges. We discovered that college students need their career counselors to be better equipped to advise them about sustainability-oriented certificates and help guide them towards these Blue Economy careers. Our educational institutions must expand their academic curricula to incorporate Blue Economy-oriented certificates and workforce development training opportunities. To support the growing Blue Economy, we must create a roadmap that educates and prepares students for sustainable careers, training career counselors and connecting academic institutions with the tools and knowledge needed to guide the next generation of ocean leaders.
Blue Economy: From US Pioneers to Global Leaders
As the host of UNOC 2022, Portugal aspired to be a leader in the Blue Economy. With a deep maritime legacy and strong coastal infrastructure, the country is investing in ocean innovation and sustainable growth.
Our own journey with the Blue Economy has witnessed Portugal’s leadership which began back in 2019, at the University Massachusetts Dartmouth’s Blue Economy Symposium. There Portugal’s Ministry of the Sea introduced its BlueTech Accelerator, sparking meaningful exchange among academic leaders — and catching the attention of US Senator Markey and Rep. Joe Kennedy. Later that year we reconnected at (The Maritime Alliance) TMA’s Blue Tech conference in San Diego where Portugal’s Blue Economy Cluster with Forum Oceano was the star, and we then exchanged ideas and shared lessons learned from our work with New England’s Blue Economy community.
It’s been exciting to see Portugal’s momentum and to be part of a growing global conversation about the future of our oceans. In 2022 it was an honor to be hosted by the Azores mayor of Terceira to explore their island’s ocean innovations like the Blue Azores Program. The next year we hosted a delegation of teachers and students from Terceira for our week-long intensive Sustainability Summit in Massachusetts.
The Institute’s Sustainability Summit is an excellent platform for exchanging experiences, encouraging dialogue, fostering innovation, and empowering people through knowledge sharing, networking, and collective action, we can achieve meaningful progress and create a brighter future for generations to come. Mayor Jose Meneses of Terceira
At UNOC3, it was heartening to see how Portugal is now expanding its Blue Economy strategy with long-term vision: educating their children. By investing in the next generation now, they can maximize their success in innovation and infrastructure. Take Mayor Carlos Carreiras of Cascais, who hosted the Sustainable Blue Economy Investment Forum at UNOC2022. He is now partnering with the Oceano Azul Foundation to pilot “Educating a Blue Generation” — a powerful initiative aimed at building ocean literacy among young children by weaving ocean topics directly into the school curriculum. It’s a wise investment. When children grow up understanding the value of the ocean, they are eager to protect it.
Call to Action: Educating the Blue Economy Generation
The success of the Blue Economy ultimately depends on the next generation. That’s why we’ve built Sustainable Career Pathways Platform for educators and career counselors so they can help students navigate this New Frontier towards good-paying green and blue jobs. Our platform’s teaching tools present fact-based, up-to-date research – and offer a roadmap so they can guide students on ten distinct Blue Economy career pathways — from aquaculture and marine electrification to blue finance, marine biology, coral restoration, and water management. We’ve produced a series of instructional videos that engage students by spotlighting our real-life stories of young champions of sustainability solutions. We ask them: “Did You Know?” and “How Can You Help?”
We will premiere these Sustainable Career Pathway videos at our upcoming Blue Economy event in Portugal where we will celebrate Cronkite Ocean Award 2025 recipient James Ellsmoor in his adopted country of Portugal. We look forward to reconnecting with Portugal’s Blue Economy pioneers and Terceira, welcome new friends from Cascais and explore future partnerships and lay the groundwork for our first-ever Global Blue Job Shadow Day in 2026.
To truly thrive in this New Frontier, we need to invest in our children’s education and the collective future of our oceans. During these challenging times, the solution is clear: we must come together—Stone Soup style—to build a generation of ocean leaders.
The Blue Economy is a movement that requires all of us. Let’s work together to educate the Blue Economy Generation and help them become the champions our oceans need.