Tag: Featured Articles

Adapting to and combating climate change through aquaculture investment

Maine, with nearly 3,400 miles of coastline and over 2,000 coastal islands, is inextricably tied to the sea. The Gulf of Maine has long supplied Mainers with both livelihoods and food but is one of the fastest warming bodies of water on the globe, with the average temperature rising by four degrees Fahrenheit over last four decades¹.   

At three and a half times faster than the global average, the change is enough to materially affect people’s dinner plates and paychecks. 

And it’s not just the changing climate: Maine’s working waterfront is seemingly being squeezed on all sides, with high costs for bait and fuel, loss of working waterfront access to development, ongoing uncertainty regarding regulatory demands for ropeless gear, and worries about the impact of offshore wind on already vulnerable fisheries. 

The overall annual impact of Maine’s fisheries (or Maine’s “Blue Economy”) is an estimated $3.2 billion and 33,300 jobs.² That’s economic input and jobs Maine can’t afford to lose – particularly in Downeast Maine, where the sector accounts for 45% of all direct jobs.³ 

For Coastal Enterprises, Inc. (CEI), a community development financial institution (CDFI) based in Brunswick, Maine, investing in aquaculture supports community economic development by diversifying income streams along the rural coastline. It builds climate resilience while helping to ensure that families that have worked Maine’s waters for generations can have opportunities to do so for generations to come, while also welcoming a new crop of sea farmers to the coast. 

This interview took place in July 2023. In this interview, Cameron Barner discusses his path to small business ownership, along with Love Point Oyster’s story and where CEI fits into the picture.

The Small Business: Love Point Oysters 

Try telling a banker that your first crop will take three years to harvest, that their collateral will literally be in or underwater, and sales profitability is several years away. That’s the challenge many oyster farmers face when trying to get startup capital. 

It was one faced by Cameron Barner of Love Point Oysters, when he realized that the company had outgrown their small skiff and would need to purchase an additional boat. “Aquaculture is a risky business, so traditional banks don’t always take you seriously; they have hard lines where they won’t lend.” Barner turned instead to CEI’s Sea Farm Loan. “We didn’t have the capital to go buy a new boat outright, so we reached out to CEI.” 

CEI has over 45 years of experience working with marine-based businesses, with full time fisheries and aquaculture experts providing technical assistance and business advisors who have developed accurate and detailed financial forecasting models for the industry. From experience they understood the risks and potential of these businesses and provide not only a loan, but one designed specifically to meet the needs of Maine’s working waterfront, with a low-interest rate and seasonal payment schedules that help marine businesses thrive and reduce the burden of carrying debt. This kind of tailored product is made possible through long-term, flexible low and no-cost philanthropic and government funding raised by CEI, which then passes along those reduced costs and flexibility to the borrower. 

Working with a community development financial institution has additional benefits beyond access to capital, as CEI was able to connect Barner with a business advisor and sector experts at no-cost. “That relationship was just so positive, we worked with our loan officer and after that we got connected with the Maine Small Business Development Center at CEI. It just really helped us kick start our business into the next phase and thinking about different opportunities.” 

“Oyster is a virtuous protein.” says Barnes. “It’s a creature that gives so much and takes nothing in return. It really has little to no negative impact on the environment and it’s pretty much only positive in terms of water quality. Growing oysters is good.”

Thanks to the investment in equipment, plus advising, Love Point is growing, with goals to increase distribution beyond southern Maine, which is good for business and the environment.

Working Waterfront Access for the Industry: Sea Meadow Marine Foundation

Currently, only 20 miles of Maine’s coast remain as commercial working waterfronts, particularly as residential developments displace traditional uses. Many fishermen and aquaculturists have limited access to vital wharf infrastructure, including tidal access, commercial hoists, forklifts, and room to load and maneuver trucks⁴ – making it all the harder and more expensive to maintain a business. 

On a statewide basis, the Maine Working Waterfront Access Protection Program provides a channel for preserving working waterfront properties. Established by the Maine legislature in 2005, with significant advocacy from CEI, this bond-funded program allows the state to buy development rights on a piece of working waterfront to ensure future development will not limit commercial marine use. The program has preserved 34 properties to date, but ongoing funding is dependent on passing new bonds every 2-3 years, and the application process is competitive – meaning that while it’s an incredibly important tool, it doesn’t work in all situations. 

The Even Keel Boatyard and Marina in Yarmouth, Maine is a notable exception to the trend of lost access. In 2020, the 12-acre boatyard, with 7 acres of salt marsh and 4 acres of land, went up for sale for $1.26 million. The owners didn’t want to sell to developers, but none of the businesses currently using the boatyard had the funds to make the purchase. Led by local dock builder Chad Strater, a group of marine professionals banded together to form the nonprofit Sea Meadow Marine Foundation, with the goal of preserving the Even Keel boatyard and other working waterfront properties. 

“The working waterfront is a critical aspect of Maine’s economy and environmental health,” affirms Strater, “It’s part of our economy and part of our lifestyle. If the working waterfront goes away, it’s not coming back.”

Sea Meadow was able to purchase the Even Keel property in December 2021. Again, a combination of government and philanthropic dollars made the enterprise possible, including a U.S. Department of Agriculture Community Facilities loan from Coastal Enterprises Inc. and an operating grant from the Elmina B. Sewall Foundation in Maine. 

Now Sea Meadow Marine, as the property was renamed, host a variety of marine-based businesses including a business hub for early-stage fisheries and sustainable aquaculture businesses alongside marina services, heritage boat builders, and recreational marine organizations, including Love Point Oysters; the US Northeast division of Net Your Problem, a nonprofit that recycles used fishing gear; and the Boatyard, a boat equipment retailer/service provider co-owned by Statler and Sea Meadow’s Board Secretary Nick Planson, that has a goal to help to convert local aquaculture, harvesting and fishing operations to 100% electric power.

Financing a More Resilient Future

The financing packages for Love Point Oysters and Sea Meadow both required funding from impact investors, public, and philanthropic sources to make them workable. Even while motivated entrepreneurs like Barner and Strater look ways to build more resilient and climate-friendly businesses, new equipment, particularly more ocean-friendly equipment like electric engines are expensive and pressure from developers remains high. Fisheries, at their core, are a commodity-based industry, with fluctuating dock prices that make traditional debt at market rates hard to plan for and to bear. Grants combined with low-cost climate-motivated investments from individuals and foundations allow CEI, and other mission-based funders, the ability to make capital accessible and affordable to those entrepreneurs shifting the tide to a more resilient and sustainable working waterfront – a model that is working for Maine and can be replicated in communities along every coast. 

Article by Nick Branchina, Director of Fisheries and Aquaculture at CEI; and Hugh Cowperthwaite, Senior Program Director of Fisheries and Aquaculture at CEI

^{1 Ocean warming is ‘off the charts’ this summer. But not in the Gulf of Maine. Why? | WBUR News
2 FINAL-SEAMaine-Economic-Impact-Analysis-Report-2.pdf
3  ibid
4 WWF-Report_web.pdf (islandinstitute.org)} 

Above: Seal on iceberg photo courtesy of Philippe Cousteau Jr., SeaVoir Wellness

For three generations, our family has pioneered the protection and restoration of our ocean. Usually, that meant working in education, producing documentaries, or writing books. But over the past decade, we have come to realize that unless society builds financial systems that incentivize positive social and environmental outcomes and the corresponding economic opportunities for people, we will never solve the mounting environmental crisis facing our planet. 

With that in mind, we have expanded our work into entrepreneurship by founding a company called SeaVoir Wellness that is designed to actively restore the ocean and help solve the biggest climate catastrophe that no one knows about.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves, so let’s start at the beginning. Two years ago, on an unseasonably warm day in Antarctica we jumped into our zodiacs to head out and conduct water quality testing near a glacier. It was the first day of our expedition and though we were warned about the changes we would encounter but we were shocked to see the impacts of climate change all around us. Not only the obvious changes, like retreating glaciers, but also the less obvious ones, like reduced salinity and warm water temperatures. Changes that are wreaking havoc on the Antarctic ecosystem. 

Our trip was part of a multi-year campaign to establish three new marine protected areas (MPAs) in the Southern Ocean. As members of Antarctica 2020, a global group that is tasked with advocating for these MPA’s we were excited to witness the beauty of the white continent with our own eyes and gather media to support the campaign. Covering a total of 7 million square kilometers in the Weddell Sea, the East Antarctic and the Antarctic Peninsula, these three MPAs are some of the richest and most important ocean areas in the world and would result in the single largest act of conservation in human history. 

Specifically, these three areas would focus on protecting key habitats for krill. And while most people have no idea what krill are, from their impact on global climate systems to ocean biodiversity, it is no understatement to say that krill are the superheroes of the ocean.

To put into context just how important they are, we must go back in time a few centuries. Most people believe that humanity’s large-scale disruption of the global carbon cycle started with our utilization of coal and then oil and gas as drivers of economic growth. That is not true. Our disruption of the global carbon cycle happened nearly 200 years earlier, during the late 17th century, when whaling really started to become a major industry in North America. The primary use of whales was for their oil to power lights, though baleen was also prized for being used to make corsets and hoop skirts. For hundreds of years, North American and, to a lesser extent, European and Scandinavian whalers crisscrossed the ocean killing millions of whales. But what does this have to do with the carbon cycle? Whales are an enormous carbon sink; in other words, they absorb and store carbon in their bodies. It is estimated that one whale stores carbon equivalent to 1500 trees in its tissue over its lifetime. When they die, they sink carrying that carbon with them to be sequestered in the deep ocean for millennia. But whales also have an even more important climate role, they are critical to an ecological system that is arguably the single largest carbon sink on Earth, a system that centers around a creature that measures less than two inches in length – krill.  

Krill are tiny crustaceans that live throughout the ocean, but which are most abundant in the Southern Ocean around Antarctica. They are the central characters in the world’s largest carbon cycle, and it all comes down to poop. You see, krill eat phytoplankton, tiny plant-like creatures that live at the surface of the open ocean. Phytoplankton create energy through photosynthesis, and part of that process is (like trees) absorbing carbon out of the atmosphere and emitting oxygen back into it. Side note: phytoplankton are responsible for generating 50 percent of the oxygen on Earth through photosynthesis, which means they absorb carbon and emit oxygen (much more than the rainforest). 

Phytoplankton hold that carbon in their tissue until they are eaten by their main predator, krill. When krill eat phytoplankton, their poop carries that carbon with it as it sinks to the ocean floor. Simple as that…krill inadvertently sequester 13 billion tons of carbon a year in the deep ocean by doing something as natural and fundamental as pooping.

In addition, krill are a key food source for whales, which then sequester the carbon they consume in their bodies for up to 100 years until they die. But it doesn’t stop there; whale poop (who would have thought it all came down to poop?) is rich in iron. That iron, in turn, is a critical compound needed by the phytoplankton to grow, and the process keeps going on and on. 

So, when whalers killed millions of whales, scientists initially assumed krill populations would explode. As our understanding of the systems became more sophisticated and our use of ice, coral, and sediment cores became more widespread, scientists discovered that the decline in whale populations also corresponded with a crash in krill and phytoplankton populations. Deprived of iron-rich feces to nurture them, phytoplankton populations crashed, reducing their function as carbon sequestering machines (remember, they sequester billions of tons of carbon a year). Then, without enough phytoplankton, krill populations crashed, which in turn hurt not just whale populations but all the other creatures like penguins, seals, and countless fish populations as well. Almost everything in the Southern Ocean either eats krill or eats something that eats krill. So, in addition to disrupting the global carbon cycle centuries before most people think, humanity started destroying the ocean food web on a large scale a lot sooner too. 

That’s where the three MPA’s come in. They are being proposed in areas which are critically important habitats for not only krill but many other species, from adélie and chinstrap penguins that get almost all of their calories from krill; to crabeater seals, fur seals, gentoo penguins, and whales, like humpback and fin whales whose populations are recovering after centuries of exploitation. Large, protected areas that lack the stressors that come from industrial fishing are more resilient to the effects of climate change, which is critical in the face of rapid environmental changes in Antarctica.  

So, establishing three areas to protect a species central to the functioning of the world’s largest single carbon sink, the biodiversity of the ocean and oxygen production would seem like a no-brainer. However, progress towards establishing those protected areas has been stymied precisely BECAUSE of the presence of krill. Far from protecting them, over the last few decades a new threat has emerged: the krill fishery. Of the 26 countries that make up the governing body of Antarctica’s waters CAMLRR, 24 countries support the establishment of the MPA’s. Only Russia and China are blocking them, and they are doing it for the krill fishery. But why fish for krill? It doesn’t make sense. Why would humans target a creature that is so pivotal to the world’s single largest carbon sink (the equivalent of taking 23 internal combustion cars off the road each year), is critical to the generation of over 50 percent of the earth’s oxygen, and provides the basis for one of the ocean’s most important food webs? 

When we asked that question, the answer shocked us. 

70 percent of the market value of the krill fishery is for the Omega-3 supplement market in North America (with the leftover going to pet food and aquaculture feed). Another source of Omega-3’s – fish oil – is also terribly destructive to the ocean. 

We realized that this was a classic case of the market incentivizing bad behavior. Thanks to the inertia of fish oil becoming shorthand for Omega-3s over decades, aggressive greenwashing by fish and krill oil companies, and a lack of efforts to raise consumer awareness about the issue, the fish and krill industry has become a multi-billion dollar market. And the kicker is that fish and krill don’t even make their own Omega-3s; they get them by eating algae! Over the past few years, technology to extract Omega-3’s from algae has matured and is at price parity with krill and fish oil. The problem is that consumers don’t know. What is even more interesting is that algae oil is a superior Omega-3. It’s more bioavailable to our bodies than fish or krill, it is free of the common toxins found in the ocean (heavy metals, PCBs, microplastics, and more), it is farmed on land creating clean, local jobs, and it won’t give you the dreaded fish burps! 

Governments around the world are investing billions to advance technologies to sequester carbon that up until now have returned very little success. Yet, at the same time we are ignoring and even degrading the systems which ALREADY sequester billions of tons of carbon. 

As storytellers for the ocean, we realized that we had to take action. So, we founded SeaVoir Wellness and our first product is algae-based Omega-3s designed to provide a better alternative to krill or fish oil. Too often the solution to environmental problems is to stop buying, stop consuming etc. But for people who want the benefits of Omega 3s that isn’t an option. SeaVoir is a way for us to advance a conservation agenda AND provide people with a better product. Going forward, our company is dedicated to building not a sustainable brand, but a restorative brand and driving market solutions to the dual crisis of climate change and biodiversity collapse while helping people improve their health and wellness. 

Just by switching your daily Omega-3 away from fish or krill, and to the primary source of algae, you can make a positive difference in the ocean. Every. Single. Day. 

SeaVoir is one example of how a company can build a restorative Blue Economy that benefits people and the planet and in the case of Omega 3s, safeguards Antarctica and the Southern Ocean. 

As Philippe’s grandfather Jacques once said about Antarctica, “may the last continent explored by man, be the first continent not plundered by man.” 

Article by Ashlan Cousteau and Philippe Cousteau Jr, Co-Founders of Seavoir Wellness. 

Follow us at https://www.instagram.com/seavoir.wellness

Interviews and surveys from leading fund managers shed light on current approaches, common challenges and thoughts on the future.  

Blue economy funds have experienced dramatic growth in the past half decade, with nearly thirty new entrants – ten or so of them in 2022 alone. This is good news, as it signals both growing investor interest in the sector and an increasing pipeline of investable opportunities. As this ocean investment ecosystem evolves, the question of how to measure impact in investments has become a frequent topic of discussion. 

To explore this impact question further, Investable Oceans and CREO conducted interviews and surveyed over a dozen leading sustainable ocean funds from 10 countries. We supplemented these interactions with reviews of available online resources, including websites and impact reports. We selected funds that already had significant capital under management and are currently investing. The funds collectively captured a diversity of ocean verticals, though notably, 13 out of 14 address Pollution & Waste Management (Figure I). 

The discussions were candid and fascinating, and the surveys allowed for additional quantitative analysis. One clear takeaway: all of the funds we spoke with are actively developing strategies – often mapped to SDG 14 – in order to measure and understand impact in ocean investing. Still, there is a strong consensus that much work lays ahead. In this piece, we present our key learnings as well as insights directly from some of the fund managers. 

Common Trends 

Fund managers agree that impact measurement for sustainable ocean funds is in the early stages of development. Interestingly, half of the survey respondents rate its current state of development at a 6 or 7 out of 10, while the other half rate it at a 3, 4 or 5 out of 10 (Figure II). While impact measurement – and the blue fund/economy space itself – is relatively new, there is great energy, interest and momentum pushing this work forward. 

“It took a while for the impact measurement in the blue fund space to get started because of limited investors and track record of investments, limited ocean data and a broad array of investable areas. But in the past few years, with much more investor activity in this space and a focus on carbon reduction it seems to really be taking off. Now we just need more tools to measure biodiversity.” – Amy Novogratz, Co-Founder & Managing Partner, Aqua-Spark 

We learned there is a diversity in approaches to developing impact measurement strategies, but many combine and build upon existing frameworks and standards to create a proprietary impact measurement strategy. Despite high variability among the frameworks used, survey responses indicate a majority of the funds are using the Ocean Impact Navigator (OIN) and UNEP FI as core tools (Figure III). Several also supplement their strategies with tools including IRIS+, GRI and SDG Compass. 

The OIN serves as a foundation for numerous funds, given its flexible design and specific focus on blue economy challenges. While some managers believe improvements can be made, such as adding biodiversity metrics, they also acknowledge that this is the first time we are seeing a truly collaborative effort. 

“SWEN Blue Ocean is an Article 9 fund according to the European SFDR regulation, which means 100% of our investments should have impact indicators. We welcome the Ocean Impact Navigator, a set of science-based indicators developed by 1000 Ocean Startups. It provides a shared framework that the ocean innovation community can leverage to accelerate collective impact.” – Christian Lim, Co-Managing Director, SWEN Blue Ocean 

A majority of managers also work closely with their portfolio companies to identify impact reporting metrics. Several emphasize the importance of constructive conversations with these companies around metric selection in order to gain a clear understanding of the impact that can be achieved. However, there are differing perspectives among fund managers on the appropriate number of impact metrics; some define 1-5 Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for each portfolio company, while others reach up to 20 or even 40 KPIs. 

“To get the right metrics you’ve got to go deep into the company’s specific operational pathways. You need to identify the things that generate convergent returns – economic and environmental. It doesn’t work from the top down – it has to be inside out.” – George Duffield, Founding Partner, Ocean 14 Capital 

As fund managers are working through this process, some are embracing an iterative approach… 

“We see every investment as an opportunity to learn about what works – and what doesn’t – when it comes to pursuing near- and long-term outcomes. Toward this end, we work with our partners to articulate the intended impact of their products or services, identify the indicators they use to measure progress toward that impact, and the methods and sources they use to collect indicator data. By asking partners to select impact indicators that will bring the most value to them, we aim to reinforce the link between impact measurement and management and strategy, wherein data is used as an input to critical business decisions.” – Joanna Cohen, Head of Impact Measurement & Management, Builders Vision 

To supplement this internal work, some funds engage third-party organizations and impact agencies to help develop frameworks and identify reporting metrics. Among these are consulting firms and NGOs with a deep knowledge of the ocean, such as The Nature Conservancy and the Aquaculture Stewardship Council. A few funds have even created formal advisory groups of internal and external experts across diverse disciplines. 

“One of the things that has really been a great help to us from the very beginning is joining The Circulate Initiative’s Impact Metrics Working Group. This group was formed to bring together researchers, experts, advocates and practitioners with different content knowledge relevant to our work – it’s an incredible group. Circulate Capital was able to use the working group as a sounding board for our impact framework – testing our metrics, methodologies, baselines – to really guide how we measure the impact of our investments. Their feedback and guidance has given us the confidence that we’re on the right track.” – Ellen Martin, Chief Impact Officer, Circulate Capital 

We also found that the motivations behind developing strategies vary among funds, especially when considering factors such as regulatory compliance, demand from LPs and ties between carry and impact performance. Even though some funds are mandated by regulations and compliance rules, our conversations indicate that personal belief is what primarily drives efforts to create and maintain strategies. This underscores the unique dedication of fund managers to look for investments where sustainable outcomes generate competitive financial returns.

Shared Challenges 

The complexity of the ocean biosphere makes measuring impact difficult; desired data may be unavailable or costly to collect. According to our survey, half of the fund managers struggle with developing impact measurement metrics due to the lack of measurable data. With few exceptions, portfolio companies oversee their own data collection. Several funds have expressed the challenge of selecting the appropriate quantitative metrics for each company to effectively showcase progress toward fund-level goals. This issue has led to a gap between the individuals who require data, such as GPs and LPs, and those who are responsible for collecting it. 

While efforts like the OIN are attempting to standardize metrics for sustainable ocean funds, each individual fund still maintains its own unique set of metrics. This can create confusion for startups receiving investments from multiple ocean funds and raises the question: How would implementing a standardized menu of metrics and conversion rate affect the sector’s ability to assess the dollar value of these investments? Measuring a startup’s output indicators or return on investment is easy but translating the data into a quantifiable “return on impact” is much more challenging. Establishing a standard for determining the actual cost of factors, such as a kilogram of plastic in the ocean or fertilizer leakage, could include the expenses of cleaning up or savings generated by preventing such occurrences. 

“It is imperative that startups and funders align on a standard framework to measure and report positive ocean impact outcomes. Standardized ocean impact metrics will allow us all to address these ocean challenges more efficiently. While it may be challenging to create a standard impact framework, it’s achievable if we start by first working with startups to understand the type of raw impact data they can collect, and then build a framework grounded in science that prominent funders can use to align reporting requirements for their portfolios.” – Craig Dudenhoeffer, Chief Impact Officer & Investments Officer, Sustainable Ocean Alliance 

Although funds recognize the value of standardizing frameworks, impact measurement poses different challenges depending on the specific verticals within the blue economy. Funds have found it easier to measure impact in investments related to ocean-related energy solutions, while it is more difficult in aquaculture, fisheries, and ocean intelligence/data solutions. Ocean CDR and ecosystem restoration fall somewhere in-between. Some frameworks suggest using qualitative metrics in the more challenging sectors, but there is concern about the credibility of such metrics. 

“Faber’s fund strategically covers blue biotech, food & feed, decarbonization of shipping, ocean intelligence, desalination, and ocean-related energy. From an impact management perspective, some areas are more straightforward than others. In general, enabling technologies with a direct positive impact on CO2 emissions, such as clean energy, have metrics easier to measure and monitor. Others, like blue biotech, with an impact on complex industrial value chains, or ocean intelligence, with an indirect impact on biodiversity, can be more challenging. Access to data is key.” – Rita Sousa, Partner at Faber Ocean/Climate Tech Fund

While funds are clearly investing time and effort to develop proprietary strategies, numerous managers expressed a genuine interest in harmonizing approaches. The alignment of funds on impact measurement has the potential to facilitate the flow of much needed capital to accelerate the transition to a sustainable blue economy.

 

Article by Ted Janulis and Helena Janulis of Investable Oceans and Aly Rose of CREO Syndicate

Ted Janulis is Founder & Principal at Investable Oceans, an ocean investment hub that accelerates market-based sustainable ocean investing across all asset classes and sectors of the Blue Economy. Over a 35+ year business career, Ted has served in various executive positions, including CEO, at financial institutions involved in Capital Markets, Banking and Asset Management. He is President Emeritus of The Explorers Club in New York City and serves on numerous for-profit and not-for-profit boards, including Gannett Co Inc, Ocean Risk and Resilience Action Alliance (ORRAA), One Ocean Foundation and Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment Board of Visitors.

Aly Rose is Sector Manager of Oceans & Aquaculture at CREO Syndicate, a 501(c)3 think-and-do tank working with a network of ultra-high-net-worth family offices leveraging private capital to invest in climate solutions providing a more sustainable future. Prior to her role at CREO, Aly worked at SeaAhead, where she helped manage the Blue Angels Investment Group, served on the working group for 1000 Ocean Coalition’s Ocean Impact Navigator, and helped incorporate IMM strategies for startups into SeaAhead’s BlueSwell Incubator curriculum. Aly holds a bachelor’s degree in Comparative Policy, Environmental Studies, and Spanish from Bowdoin College, a Master’s Degree in Spanish Linguistics from Middlebury College, and a Master’s Degree in Climate Change and Sustainability Policy from Northeastern University. 

Helena Janulis is the Business Development & Special Projects lead at Investable Oceans, and the COP28 Ocean Pavilion Associate Project Manager at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. She holds an Environmental Master’s Degree from the University of Colorado Boulder, a bachelor’s degree in marine science from the University of Hawai’i Hilo, and a Project Management Certificate from Cornell University. Prior to her work in ocean finance, Helena was a consultant for Outside Magazine, a B Corp Certification consultant for a tempeh company in Boulder, and a Divemaster in Hawai’i. She is a long-term member of The Explorers Club in New York City and the Committee Chair for the Club’s Rising Explorers Grant.