After 10 years in #circularity, I have put together a list featuring 100 people and organizations, who I think you should follow. In this twelfth post, I am focusing on people and organizations pushing forward circular practices in relation to #water and advocating for the #blueeconomy. Here are four individuals and organizations working to clean waters and preserve our oceans, who I think you should follow.

45) Boyan Slat is the founder of The Ocean Cleanup. The Ocean Cleanup develops technologies to remove plastics from the ocean. The non-profit originally began its work by scooping plastic out of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, and it has since shifted a part of its focus over to preventing waste from entering the ocean by intercepting it from highly polluted rivers globally. In line with this, The Ocean Cleanup has created several cleanup systems to capture both ocean plastic and river plastic. The non-profit aims to give the plastic collected a second life, by giving it to partners to recycle and reuse.

46) Gunter Pauli launched Zero Emissions Research and Initiatives (ZERI). ZERI is a decentralized global not-for-profit network that works towards finding sustainable solutions – inspired by nature's own design principles. It was originally launched, with the support of the Japanese government, at the United Nations University. In its early days, the network designed a new business model to allow companies to operate without producing waste or creating environmental emissions. On this basis, Gunter later developed a vision for “The Blue Economy” in 2009 with the aim of encouraging entrepreneurs globally to take action.

47) Katrin Schuhen founded Wasser 3.0 gGmbH. The non-profit fights for water without microplastics and micropollutants. The activities of Wasser 3.0 span from microplastic detection over to removal and reuse. Amongst others, the non-profit carries out microplastic analyses for different actors, creates adaptive modular solutions for industry actors to rid water of microplastics, and runs educational projects. Wasser 3.0 runs a knowledge database about wastewater treatment, microplastics and micropollutants, as well as circularity in water that is freely accessible.

48) Mere Takoko is an Indigenous Māori conservationist. She is the co-founder of the Pacific Whale Fund and an ambassador of the Circular Bioeconomy Alliance. Her work revolves around collaborative resource management and community-based adaptation strategies. She works to amplify Indigenous voices in environmental governance and support community-led climate resilience across the Pacific. As an ambassador of the Circular Bioeconomy Alliance, she works to connect different stakeholders in order to accelerate the transition over to a circular bioeconomy that puts nature first.

🔔 Stay tuned to to see the whole list of 100 people and organizations to follow unfold on LinkedIn, our blog, and our app.