Posted on December 6, 2022
Ocean Exchange, a leader in supporting the acceleration of innovative solutions for healthy oceans and the sustainable Blue Economy, announces the winners of its prestigious Neptune, Wallenius Wilhelmsen Orcelle®, and Transportation Hub Awards, each of which carries prize money of $100,000. The winners were selected from an international list of 24 finalists at the Ocean Exchange 2022 event, held October 23-25 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
“Now in our 11th year, this award competition was the largest and most competitive in our organization’s history. With a record number of nominations and impressive global reach, it was fitting that the award winners—hailing from Tanzania, Spain, and Portugal—reflected the international scope of an event that is tackling critical worldwide issues,” said Millicent Pitts, Chief Executive Officer and Executive Director of Ocean Exchange.
“As a long-term sponsor, Wallenius Wilhelmsen is delighted at how Ocean Exchange has grown into a wellspring of sustainable innovation with truly global reach. To us, it represents the epitome of ‘good business’ in every sense. Through it, we are finding novel solutions to our sustainability challenges and valuable new green-business opportunities,” noted Roger Strevens, Vice President, Global Sustainability for Wallenius Wilhelmsen.
Winners of the 2022 Ocean Exchange Awards (Left to Right): Transportation Hubs Award, C2C-New Cap, André Mão de Ferro, Chief Technology Officer; Neptune Award, NovFeed, Diana Orembe, Founder and CEO; and Wallenius Wilhelmsen Orcelle® Award,
The 2022 award recipients are:
2022 Neptune Award: NovFeed, Tanzania, represented by Diana Orembe, Founder and CEO. Focused on replacement of fish meal in aqua-feed formulation, NovFeed has developed a biotechnological platform where organic waste is converted into a natural, traceable, and safe non-animal protein source for aquaculture feeds.
Yearly, over 20 million tons of wild fish are caught and processed into feed for the fastest growing part of the world food system aquaculture. NovFeed’s sustainable high-protein alternative to fish meal allows for the replacement of the production of unsustainable protein ingredients, like fishmeal and soy protein concentrates that are extensively used in aquaculture feeds globally. For every single ton of waste recycled, 7.6 tons of carbon emission is reduced, per the NovFeed pitch.
2022 Wallenius Wilhelmsen Orcelle Award: BeePlanet Factory, Spain, represented by Jon Asin, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer. BeePlanet Factory engages in energy storage based on second-life batteries (B2U); smart charging infrastructure solutions for electric vehicle charging (BeeCharge) and control software to facilitate the integration of renewable energies and energy consumption (BeeSmart). The company also provides eConsulting, guiding its clients through the adoption of new forms of mobility.
The company recovers and selects depleted Lithium-Ion batteries from electric vehicles. (In 2021 alone, more than 7 million electric vehicles were sold worldwide.) These batteries will be eventually discarded from use in electric vehicles, but many of them will still offer a State of Health (SoH) of 70 to 80%. This makes them suitable for reuse in a second-life application in stationary energy storage systems before their final recycling process. Using depleted batteries as BeePlanet Factory’s raw material avoids extraction of new materials. The reused batteries also present a lower carbon footprint, according to Asin. Other benefits include optimizing solar PV installations by increasing the self-consumption rate and contributing to accelerate the adoption of EVs by helping to deploy faster EV charging infrastructure.
2022 Transportation Hub Award: C2C-NewCap, Portugal, represented by André Mão de Ferro, Chief Technology Officer. C2C-NewCap has developed breakthrough eco-friendly energy storage technologies based on hybrid supercapacitors. The land transportation industry is one of the most CO2-emitting sectors. During resting periods, the driver can use the battery’s energy, facing risk of dead start or keep the vehicle idling, causing up to 11% more CO2 emissions and up to 7000€/year in fuel.
C2C’s solution directly helps to decarbonize this energy-intensive industry. An energy storage system for heavy-commercial vehicles (fully compatible with the truck industry, tailored in voltage and size) that integrates a battery coupled with GO-START, C2C’s proprietary supercapacitor is specifically designed for engine cranking. It reduces waste production by extending the lifetime of batteries and fossil fuel consumption by limiting idling, and does not use critical raw materials. The adoption of GO-START will efficiently lower the CO2 emissions of the commercial heavy vehicles by 11%, having a direct impact on air quality, especially in loading/unloading areas such as harbors, outlined by Mão de Ferro in his pitch.
“Our solutions review team and event delegates alike commented on the quality of pioneering, sustainable solutions presented at the event. The finalists were inspiring—not only informative—as each demonstrated an incredible level of innovation, positive impact, and execution that is already taking place across such categories as aquaculture, marine habitat, energy, vessel and port operations, data/robotics, digitalization, emissions reduction, plastics use reduction/recycling, and clean water. I want to extend a huge thank you to our sponsors —your support is essential to making this happen,” Pitts added.
