As part of its mandate to mobilise civil society towards the Third UN Ocean Conference (UNOC3), the Ocean & Climate Platform, in collaboration with Friends of Ocean Action, are launching a global visioning exercise dedicated to “imagining the future of ocean sustainability”. This collaborative exercise builds on the conclusions of the consultation “A Call to All the Voices of the Ocean”, which identified the main expectations from civil society for UNOC3 and underscored the importance of anticipating the post-2030 Agenda and the next steps for SDG14, while striving to achieve the current targets. 

This participatory approach aims to identify what a more desirable future for the ocean could look like and the pathways to reach it. Such an approach aims to spark creativity and help generate innovative solutions to current challenges, while boosting action and deeply inspiring all ocean actors.

The first step of this exercise consists of an online survey dedicated to identifying “seeds” to feed into the visioning exercise. Seeds are initiatives (e.g., civil society movements, technological innovations, policies, business practices) that have the potential to positively shape the future yet often remain marginal to the dominant system. These seeds will then be analysed and serve as the foundation for an in-person workshop dedicated to building visions for a more desirable future and pathways to action. 

Our goal, based on this survey, will be threefold: (1) to assess the status of ocean sustainability on several key topics; (2) to identify some of the goals to reach for a more sustainable ocean; and (3) to reflect on ways to reach them. These visions and the valuable perspectives they offer will be presented in Nice during UNOC3.

The survey will be open until 10 December 2024.