🌊 The Ocean Awakens @ Climate Week NYC 2026

The Climate Week NYC's Ocean action hub ⚓ for Corporations, Startups & Nonprofits
The Ocean Awakens brings together leaders from business, science, nonprofits, and the arts for a half-day of panels, conversations, and networking aboard the historic Tall Ship Wavertree at the South Street Seaport.
Monday September 21, the day Climate Week NYC gets to work. With sustainability and ocean leaders already converging on New York for UNGA week, make the Wavertree your anchor event.
This year's program will explore plastics and their cascading impacts on health, biodiversity, and climate; marine restoration and protection; the new wave of maritime technology; policy and advocacy; extreme field action; and art, media and storytelling.
Whether you work in sustainability, policy, science, or advocacy — this is your ocean hub for Climate Week NYC.

See full program at https://pages.plasticodyssey.fund/oceanawakens/

📅 Schedule
2:00 PM — Check-in & Opening Remarks

Keynote — A New Enterprise
The Ocean Awakens — Season 2 opens with an announcement worth being aboard for.
Simon Bernard, CEO & Co-Founder, Plastic Odyssey

Episode I — Warp to Circularity: Full Sail Impulse
Maritime panel
Sail cargo, low-carbon shipping, high-tech vessel design, and the return of wind to global supply chains.
Alex Dechelotte, Co-Founder & COO, Plastic Odyssey
Grain de Sail — Speaker to be announced
VELA — Speaker to be announced
Speaker to be announced

Episode II — Away Mission: New Worlds Expeditions
Restoration & expeditions panel
Remote coastlines, extreme logistics, and the new wave of field teams using technology to find and remove plastics where few have gone before.
Andy Schroeder, Co-Founder, Ocean Plastics Recovery Project
More speakers to be announced

4:10 PM — Shore Leave (networking break on the upper deck)

Episode III — The Wrath of Plastics: First Contact with Body & Biodiversity
Plastics & health panel
From ecosystem to bloodstream: endocrine disruptors, forever chemicals, and microplastics are reshaping what we know about health and biodiversity. On stage, the brands and scientists cleaning up their formulas, sourcing through regenerative farming, and confronting what plastic pollution means beyond the ocean.
SVR – Speaker to be announced
Clarins – Speaker to be announced
More speakers to be announced

Episode IV — The Undiscovered Treaty
Advocacy & policy panel
The UN plastics treaty, Extended Producer Responsibility, and the push to transition away from fossil fuels — what comes next, and the regional paths forward.
Holly Kaufman, Founder & Executive Director, The Plastics & Climate Project
Erin Simon, VP & Head of Plastic Waste and Business, WWF
Marine Conservation Institute – Speaker to be announced
IUCN – Speaker to be announced

Episode V — The Voyage Home
Storytelling & season finale
Films, field sketches, and ocean stories from the front lines – and a final announcement to close the season.
Speakers to be announced

6:50 PM — Dive Long & Prosper (networking reception on deck)
8:00 PM — Close

🤝 Sponsors
Special thanks to the South Street Seaport Museum for their partnership in making the Wavertree available as our venue, and to Open Water for their generous support.
💖 Support our organizations
The South Street Seaport Museum, located in the heart of the historic Seaport District, preserves and interprets the history of New York as a great port city. Founded in 1967, the Seaport Museum includes an extensive collection of works of art and artifacts, a maritime reference library, galleries, working 19th-century print shop, and a fleet of historic vessels that all work to tell the story of “Where New York Begins.”
Plastic Odyssey is a global nonprofit tackling the ocean plastic crisis through bold cleanup expeditions, long-term stewardship of marine ecosystems, field-based research and innovation, and education that inspires lasting change.

Plastic Odyssey Fund is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit headquartered in San Francisco, created to mobilize U.S. philanthropies, corporations, governments, and individual donors in support of Plastic Odyssey's global mission. Contributions are channeled to Plastic Odyssey Foundation and Plastic Odyssey Expedition, funding coastal cleanup, marine restoration, and public awareness across the blue economy.