Against plastic waste in the oceans: Tide Ocean SA wins Swiss Ethics Award
As part of the Future Leadership Forum, organized by Swiss Excellence Forum, the Swiss Ethics Award 2022 was presented in Lucerne on May 11. The award went to Tide Ocean SA, a young company dedicated to the fight against plastic waste in the oceans.
Tide Ocean SA from Basel is honored with the Swiss Ethics Award. With its innovative approaches, the Swiss company contributes to solving the plastic pollution of the world's oceans. 400 million tons of plastic are produced annually, only 9% are recycled, more than 8 million tons end up in the world's oceans. Tide Ocean operates a complete value chain for upcycled ocean plastic and is particularly involved in Southeast Asia, the region with the highest rate of plastic waste.
Fishermen who used to live as sea nomads from fishing and can no longer continue this traditional lifestyle today receive a price well above the market from Tide Ocean for collecting plastic and thus a new source of income. Social enterprises sort and process the plastic waste. The workers employed there receive social security, training and, in some cases, housing. The soiled plastic is reprocessed by a worldwide award-winning process into a fully usable and versatile raw material. The granulate is sold to customers in the plastic processing industry and flows back into the material cycle in the form of durable products. The production of the recyclate is more environmentally friendly than the production of new plastic and causes three times less CO2 emissions. Wherever possible, Tide Ocean relies on renewable energy in the value chain. If the use of fossil energy forms cannot be avoided, the CO2 emissions caused are compensated for through reforestation projects.
By seamlessly encompassing the entire value chain, the company has an ecologically and socially holistic and internationally scalable business model that is committed to ethics in an exemplary sense. These were the reasons for the jury to award Tide Ocean with the Swiss Ethics Award. With the Swiss Ethics Award, the Swiss Excellence Forum honors projects that set new ethical standards in the field of business. Also nominated were Energie 360° AG, Hunziker Partner AG, Recycling-Paradies AG and Yourharvest AG.
Source and further information: Swiss Excellence Forum
