WOC Partners with The Economist on World Ocean Summit and Arctic Summit

The World Ocean Council is partnering again with The Economist to help ensure ocean business community participation in these upcoming events: World Ocean Summit 2014 (Half Moon Bay, near San Francisco, 24-26 February 2014)and Arctic Summit 2014 (London, 4 March 2014).

WOC is working with The Economist to advance broad multi-stakeholder discussion on global ocean issues at the second World Ocean Summit by reaching out to ocean industries. Ocean stakeholders are invited to join the online discussion around the conference program themes of Governance and Sustainability at the World Ocean Summit discussion board.

The Economist again invited WOC to help shape the World Ocean Summit program. Several WOC Members – DNV GL, Maersk Line, Shell – are the lead ocean industry sponsors for the event. Senior executives from a number of WOC Members feature on the conference program: Rupert Thomas, Vice President Environment for Royal Dutch Shell, Masamichi Morooka, International Chamber of Shipping’s Chairman, and David Walker, CEO of DNV GL – Energy. In addition, WOC CEO Paul Holthus is co-leading the working group on “The High Seas: Collective Governance”.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will deliver the World Ocean Summit opening keynote via live video. The influential speaker lineup also includes: HSH Prince Albert II of Monaco, Aníbal Cavaco Silva, President of Portugal, Ali Bongo Ondimba, President of Gabon, Sri Mulyani, World Bank’s Managing Director, Maria Ignacia Benitez Pereira, Chile’s Minister of the Environment, Sharif Sutardjo, Indonesia’s Minister of Marine Affairs and Fisheries, Maria Damanaki, Commissioner for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries for the European Union, and Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme.

WOC is also working with The Economist to engage the Arctic business community in the second Arctic Summit. The event will gather 150 policy makers and business leaders representing a wide range of Arctic stakeholders – from mining and hydrocarbon business and investors, Arctic Council members and observer states, to local community representatives and environmental experts – to identify the opportunities and realities of Arctic trade and economic development.

The speaker for Arctic Summit’s lead industry sponsor – DNV GL, a founding WOC Member – is Knut Ørbeck-Nilssen, DNV GL Maritime’s President. Other speakers include: Aleqa Hammond, Prime Minister of Greenland, Tom Paddon, CEO of Baffinland Iron Mines, and Bård Glad Pedersen, Norway’s State Secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and many other leading Arctic authorities from business, government and other stakeholders.

The results of the Arctic Summit will provide input to WOC’s active Arctic program, which continues to develop multi-industry leadership and collaboration on the responsible economic activity in the changing Arctic region.

WOC, January 31, 2014