Urban Ocean®
Overview
Urban Ocean® is a capacity-building and accelerator program to end ocean plastic pollution and build more resilient communities in cities.
Urban Ocean® champions circular economy principles, builds awareness of ocean plastic, assesses waste management systems, and supports cities to develop projects that address the interrelated challenges of ocean plastics and resilience. Since 2020, the program has been implemented in cities across Asia and Latin America.
The program is jointly implemented by Resilient Cities Network, The Circulate Initiative, and the University of Georgia New Materials Institute, with Ocean Conservancy as a founding member.
Urban Ocean® is a first-of-its-kind initiative that helps cities achieve resilient waste management transformation.
By partnering with municipal leadership and urban changemakers, the program reduces plastic pollution, strengthens urban health, and offers a better livelihood for communities while enabling circular waste systems at scale.
Urban Ocean® has developed a proof-of-concept that combines a scientific assessment methodology—the Circularity Assessment Protocol, pioneered by Jenna Jambeck’s Circularity Informatics Lab—with the design, field-testing and scaling of evidence-based solutions.
The Challenge
130 million tonnes of plastic pollutes the environment each year, potentially reaching 280 million tonnes per year by 2040 in a business as usual scenario.
While awareness of the plastic pollution crisis has increased rapidly over the past few years, there is still considerable work to be done, such as reducing the production of single-use plastics and improving waste management systems.
There is also a need to connect these solutions with the unique needs and priorities of communities to ensure sustainable and efficient use of local resources.
The Solution
Urban Ocean® is a capacity-building and accelerator program that enhances understanding of the ocean plastics challenge and circular economy principles. The program assesses waste management systems in selected cities in jointly developing implementable and scalable projects designed to address the interrelated challenges they identify.
Through a global network of practitioners, Urban Ocean® provides a platform for cities to showcase their leadership and share their knowledge and experiences to accelerate the transition to a circular economy.
Areas of Action
- Establishing a peer network of cities that commit to and jointly work on solving interrelated problems around waste management, resilience, circular economy and ocean plastic through sharing of best-practices and capacity development.
- Assessing the situation on the ground using the Circularity Assessment Protocol (CAP) to enable cities to comprehensively map challenges, risks, and vulnerabilities, which will inform strategy and project development.
- Developing project strategies, proposals and solutions that can be presented to potential partners to build appropriate public-private partnerships between cities, businesses, and financing organizations.
Participating Cities
See each city, below, for links to review the respective Project Statement, Circularity Assessment Protocol Report, and Waste Management Profile, where available.
Why Partner With Urban Ocean®
Initiated in 2019, Urban Ocean® has developed a proof-of-concept that combines scientific baseline assessment methodology by the University of Georgia’s Jenna Jambeck with project identification and prioritization.
Jambeck is a co-founder of the UGA New Materials Institute, where she leads its Circular Materials Management section. She holds the distinguished titles of Regents’ Professor, and the Georgia Athletic Association Distinguished Professor of Environmental Engineering. She was named a MacArthur Foundation Fellow in 2022.
Urban Ocean® builds on more than eight years of city relationships by Resilient Cities Network and leverages the expertise of The Circulate Initiative, the University of Georgia New Materials Institute and a diverse ecosystem of stakeholders who have the power to collectively solve the plastic pollution challenge in cities.
