Blue Cast: Oceanic Global’s Lea d’Auriol on Making a Sustainable Sea Change
About 70 percent of the globe is covered by oceans, but these giant bodies of water are under stress. Plastic pollution, microfibers from laundry and overfishing are all threatening the health of the seas—and the planet at-large.
In the latest episode of Blue Cast’s Solutionist podcast series with the Fashion Impact Fund, Tricia Carey spoke with Lea d’Auriol, the founder and executive director of Oceanic Global Foundation. The nonprofit works to instill care for the oceans and has an open-source Blue Standard that businesses can use to help them cut plastic and become more sustainable.
Lea’s formative years were spent in Hong Kong, which is both situated on the water and contains a lot of green space via national parks. However, this location also provided a front-row seat to humans’ negative effects on the environment—such as poor air quality and red tides. “From a really early age, I started to understand our human impact on the environment,” Lea explained.
During her early career in event production for luxury brands, Lea became burned out at 25 since her work didn’t match her values. On a vacation to Ibiza, inspiration struck to launch the first Oceanic x Ibiza event. The inaugural event in 2017 ended up attracting 4,000 people, and launched two local bills aimed at sustainability. Following this event, she turned Oceanic Global into a 501(c)(3) organization.
Another goal of Oceanic Global is to allow people to get involved with more than just donations. The organization has chapters around the globe that allow volunteers to pitch in on local projects.
As part of its efforts, Oceanic Global has also been the co-host of the United Nations’ World Oceans Day for three years.
Lea noted that consumers as well as businesses are more aware of sustainable issues, as problems like plastic pollution have been thrust into the mainstream media. However, even with all the attention, these issues persist.
“Knowing is wonderful,” said Lea. “But we need to be shifting this into taking tangible action and looking at what is the impact that you are taking in your daily life and how to have a more positive one that’s in line with our planet.”
Listen to the episode here.
BLUE CAST by TENCEL™, a podcast series created on Carved in Blue by the TENCEL™ denim team sharing in-depth talks to the denim community at large, and the Fashion Impact Fund, a charitable fund supporting women entrepreneurs to accelerate the fashion industry’s transition to an ecosystem that values people and planet, have collaborated on a special edition five-part podcast series named ‘Solutionist’ in honor of Women’s History Month.