WSL One Ocean
The 6th Annual Awards
- Best Engagement for Good
ABOUT THIS ENTRY
As surfers and ocean lovers, the ocean is more than just our favorite place to play. It is our arena, our office, and our inspiration. The ocean, its waves and beaches, reefs and high seas, is truly our greatest resource and connector. Throughout 2023, we demonstrated our commitment to protecting and conserving the global ocean in order to preserve the future of our sport for generations to come. We are proud to share our 2023 Purpose & Impact highlights below: 363,821 Trees planted - equivalent to our carbon offsetting actions since 2018 Lead efforts with Coral Gardeners to plant 100,000 corals by the end of 2023 45,374 Hectares protected or restored including initiating the Brazilian Surfing Reserves Program 225% Increased engagement 3,041 Youth educated on cultural and environmental stewardship 1,635 Passionate volunteers engaged 2 Tons of plastic pollution removed through river barrier projects 16 Critical local impact projects funded
How does this represent “Excellence in Engagement”?
Through our WSL One Ocean in initiative and the #SpeakUpForTheOcean campaign we have brought together people from +50 countries and over 100 organizations. Based on our reach, engagement, survey results and overall social media sentiment, we are seeing a significant increase in surfers caring about the environment since the introduction of #SpeakUpForTheOcean. In particular, we are seeing more CT surfers engage in our initiatives. Throughout 2022, we had 59 different surfers participate in our environmental efforts. We believe engaging our athletes to speak on behalf of this work inspires fans to engage in more profound ways than any brand on its own can hope to achieve. For example, when Championship Tour surfer and Olympic Silver Medalist Kanoa Igarashi, shares his experience working with WSL One Ocean in iconic locations around the world ranging from Portugal to Tahiti and California on his personal channels, overall engagement in the content skyrockets. We believe our role as a global sport is to inspire athletes, fans and ocean lovers to care about protecting our one ocean. We want to bring together a community to collectively work together to inspire change - in big and small ways.
Objective
Our ultimate objective is to protect and conserve our one ocean to preserve the future of our sport. Additional goals and actions we took to achieve this are: We activated, celebrated and funded critical conservation work around the world - focusing on working with grassroots organizations and local communities; We continued to build our We Are One Ocean coalition to +100 organizations, as we believe this community has an important role in working together to inspire change. Through our fan engagement campaign and our #SpeakUpForTheOcean hashtag we created a global community where individuals - surfers, fans, ocean lovers - feel connected and inspired to work together to inspire change. Article: https://www.worldsurfleague.com/posts/517146/speak-up-for-the-ocean-on-world-ocean-day Through our actions we hope fans see WSL leading change, doing meaningful and authentic work, that is truly making a difference and having an impact. As a sports league, in 2023 and beyond, we remain committed to carbon neutral operations, ensuring that all of our events are single-serve plastic free and leading our global WSL One Ocean initiative in partnership with our WSL athletes and coalition.
Strategy & Execution
Our WSL One Ocean content was designed to capture people’s attention and appeal to hearts and minds. We find new ways to tell stories to align to media trends and differentiate from other sports content. We also leverage creative partnerships to share our message to new audiences such as: - Our week long Instagram takeover on the @unbiodiversity account - Creating engaging Reels to highlight our impact across the season: - Inviting our champions to share environmental messages off platform We have a diverse implementation strategy for #SpeakUpForTheOcean content posting optimized assets across broadcast, email, social, editorial, and having the initiative expressed through commentators, surfers, and fans. We produced 17 unique films to educate and inspire our audience to take climate action. By leveraging the power of media, and keeping our sports fans in mind, we are able to increase awareness and drive real-world impact.
Organizations
- Over the 2023 Championship Tour (CT) season
- WSL One Ocean partnered with local communities
- Indigenous and First Nations peoples
- surfers
- and a coalition of over 100 organizations to host over 16 local impact projects and activations
- which focused on protecting and conserving our global ocean and its ecosystem. Learn more at https://www.worldsurfleague.com/wsloneocean
Links
Credits
Emily Hofer
Chief People & Purpose Officer
World Surf League
Tim Greenberg
EVP, Productions and Branded Content
World Surf League
John Suhar
VP, Environmental and Social Impact & WSL PURE
World Surf League
Devyn Bisson
Director / Producer
Intermaritime Media
Andrea Poveda
Manager, Environmental and Social Impact
World Surf League
Stefani Chinn
Senior Vice President, Marketing and Talent
World Surf League
Matt Fairfax
Director
Fairfax Productions
Celebrate in NYC
Join us for the 6th Annual Hashtag Sports Awards™ on the evening of June 6, 2024 as we celebrate finalists and reveal the winners of this year's awards live during the show.
