March 8, 2021 – Today REV Ocean joined the She of the Sea pledge. REV Ocean is committed to building practices and workplace cultures that actively facilitate, cultivate, and celebrate diversity and inclusion at all levels.
The not-for-profit company is led by CEO and Marine Biologist Nina Jensen. “We have ambitions to be a diversity and inclusion leader within the yachting, maritime, and science sector. There is a significant correlation between the diversity of teams and overall innovation. It makes business sense. To find innovative high–risk–for–high–reward solutions to save the ocean we must prioritize creating a diverse team. To foster creativity and collaboration within the team, everyone must feel included.” –Nina Jensen.
The management team is currently 33% female, and the workforce is 43%. The company is still in its growth phase with a mere 23 employees, yet they already have several nationalities, Dutch, British, Canadian, Spanish, Australian, Norwegian working from all over the world. Industry backgrounds from Aquaculture, Oil, Navy, NGO, Automotive and Deep-Sea Ecology help to bring constructive criticism and breakthrough idea generation.
In June 2020 REV Ocean Signed the UN Global Compact committing to Ten Principles that, at a minimum, meet fundamental responsibilities in the areas of human rights, labour, environment and anti-corruption.
Yachting Industry
“We are now taking further accountability towards our diversity commitment by signing the She of The Sea Pledge. The first step to creating a diverse and inclusive workplace is to assess where you are. For this reason, we worked with Equality Check to provide a third-party audit of our current environment. We are thrilled that our first employee survey responses indicate we are heading in the right direction with an overall equality score of 4.7/5 compared to 3.1 within the Shipping Industry.” –Nina Jensen
“She of the Sea, alongside our Signatories and Ambassadors recognise two things:
1)There are incredible and critical benefits for all major stakeholders that come from weaving diversity and inclusion into our collective DNA.
2) Over the next few years, there will be two sides. Those that lead and those that get left behind. The only choice we have is in which camp we will sit based on the action or inaction of today.
We are honoured to have such a dynamic, agile and forward-thinking organisation join the Pledge. REV Ocean is in a unique position to combine global diversity and inclusion strategies with their mission to foster innovative solutions to global sustainability issues. Seeing this commitment already integrated into their primary focus of environmental impact shows a deep understanding of how critical diverse backgrounds and viewpoints are to this innovation. It is no surprise to see this reflected in above industry average results on the Equality Check Platform. We look forward to seeing the unique and high impact solutions that will come from this exciting partnership” Jenny Matthews, Co-Founder She of the Sea
Science Sector
REV Ocean’s Science team has been working hard to help educate and advise the International science community and influence global governance to provide more opportunities to young and unestablished scientists. Alex Rogers, REV Ocean Science Director, has contributed to several papers demonstrating the importance of involving developing countries in the latest Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction treaty discussions.
“The current Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction treaty discussions have highlighted that the High Seas are open to anyone to perform research as long as they are doing so sustainably. Taking a research expedition vessel to these remote locations, however, is expensive. Legally all nations have access, but economic barriers mean only rich nations truly access the High Seas.” – Alex Rogers
Prof. Rogers has been diligently building inclusion and diversity frameworks for research cruises to collaborate with developing countries.
“The framework provides a process to bring scientists on board vessels they wouldn’t otherwise have access to which is only addressing the first problem of access to the high seas. But the challenge is much broader than this as early career researchers must get training in every step of the research process from writing proposals to planning and executing fieldwork and the laboratory studies afterwards culminating in translation of science to policy. The creation of local career development opportunities, so these scientists can return to their home countries and continue the research building marine science capacity in their countries, is critical. Many developing countries host large biodiversity and are experiencing the most extreme impacts of climate change. They need science capacity to find solutions to the problems affecting their coastal oceans that conserve biodiversity, help to mitigate or adapt to climate change and which benefit people.”
Alex Rogers determination to bring everyone to the science lab is evident in his selection of the REV Ocean Science Innovation Committee which holds the responsibility of reviewing and accepting science proposals to perform research on the REV Ocean vessel. The Committee consists of 5 females and 6 males from all over the world.
“The Science and Innovation Committee was selected to represent an equitable distribution of gender, age and different regions of the ocean. We have members from Central and South America, Africa and the Indian Ocean (Sri Lanka) as well as more developed countries from Europe, the USA and China. We are already benefiting greatly from the diversity of views on how to improve our science and innovation programme particularly in terms of improving its inclusivity.”
Maritime Industry
The final piece of the puzzle is the maritime sector, which has traditionally been dominated by men. “We hire talent based on competency. We will recruit the best and the brightest from all over the world to find new solutions and leverage technological advances that have already been made. We do see a challenge in the talent pool within Marine Technology. Here we need to inspire the next generation to pursue careers within STEM.” Nina Jensen.
“In my twenty-year career as a Marine Technician and Science Systems Manager I can count on a single hand the number of female technicians I have worked with. In the last decade there have been some positive inroads to addressing this balance with the number of female technicians in the global fleet increasing slightly. However, we still have a long way to go, and I think we are passing over a massive amount of potential. In recent years I have participated in several outreach programs that aim to encourage students to pursue a career at sea especially those from underrepresented groups and communities. The ultimate goal is to attract as diverse a group as possible. The study, conservation and stewardship of the oceans is a universal task that is the responsibility of each and every one of us and each and every one of us should be afforded the same opportunities to participate and drive that mission. Ultimately this is a mission that benefits the whole human race and not just mankind” Leighton Rolley, REV Ocean Science Systems Manager
“I navigated these matters for 20 years, and after these years I am quite unaware of the fact that I am a woman in a man’s world. I hope most of the men are equally ignorant to it. I do not expect or accept to be favoured because of it, and I do not expect or accept to be discriminated. Hence, I do not sign on as the female Captain, I sign on as the Captain. A part of the team on the same terms as any colleagues onboard because that is what I am. If we want woman at sea to be the ordinary, we clearly cannot at the same time act as if it is something extraordinary.” Elin Signe Askvik, REV Ocean Captain.
“Since 2001 I have been working many years in South America where I have seen an increase in female offshore workers. In Brazil 20-50% of my bridge officers were female and often graduated top of their class, the best for the job.” REV Ocean Captain, Nils Baadnes. “My experience in South America makes me optimistic. The industry can learn from Brazil’s efforts to increase female interest in maritime careers. I hope this shift towards equality transcends borders and becomes an international trend.”
REV Ocean
REV Ocean is a not-for-profit company created with one overarching purpose and ambition: To make the ocean healthy again. Any profit generated from our projects will be reinvested into our work for a healthier ocean.
For further information and imagery
Media Enquiries, high-resolution imagery and additional technical details can be found at www.revocean.org.
Media contact: Lawrence Hislop lawrence.hislop@revocean.org
She of the Sea
She of the sea holds the clear vision of a high performance, competency focused yachting industry, regardless of gender, race or any other factors. www.sheofthesea.com
Media contact: Jenny Matthews jmatthews@sheofthesea.comm