World Surf League

Our #WeAreOneOcean initiative has brought together people from over 150 countries, +100 organizations, and achieved a cumulative reach of +400 million. 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 #WeAreOneOcean. In particular, we are seeing more CT surfers engage in our initiatives. Throughout 2022, we had 39 different surfers participate in our environmental work.

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 We Are One Ocean in iconic locations around the world ranging from Australia to 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.

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.
• NGOs: https://www.weareoneocean.org/ngo-coalition
• Businesses: https://www.weareoneocean.org/corp-submissions

Through our fan engagement campaign and our #WeAreOneOcean 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/504769/wsl-celebrates-world-nature-conservation-day-with-six-creators

Through our actions, we hope fans see WSL leading change and 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 We Are One Ocean initiative in partnership with our WSL athletes and the We Are One Ocean coalition.

Our We Are 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 with media trends and differentiate from other sports content. We also leverage creative partnerships to share our message with new audiences such as:

• Our week-long Instagram takeover on the @unbiodiversity account sharing 14 pieces of content (2x/day): https://www.instagram.com/p/Ck8wpvoIxUI/
• Creating engaging Reels to highlight our impact across the season: https://www.instagram.com/p/Ck9FGGaIjYr/
• Inviting our champions to share environmental messages off-platform such as:
  A: @unclimatechange aligned to COP27 in Egypt: https://www.instagram.com/p/ClAszRvDBPx/
  B: @unep “UN Environment Program” aligned to restoration flagship announcements https://www.instagram.com/p/CmqjwlJj0A8/

We have a diverse implementation strategy for #WeAreOneOcean content posting optimized assets across broadcast, email, social, editorial, as well as having the initiative expressed through commentators, surfers, and fans. We produced 17 unique films to educate and inspire our audience to take climate action: https://www.weareoneocean.org/impact

By leveraging the power of media, and keeping our sports fans in mind, we are able to increase awareness and drive real-world impact.