'We have over 300 brand partners. This model works. Every nonprofit should steal this model’. Michael Stewart tells the story of Seatrees.
👂 Listen on Apple Podcasts (20 min mini-episode)
👂 Listen on Apple Podcasts (Full episode)
👂 Listen on Spotify (20 min mini-episode)
👂 Listen on Spotify (Full episode)
👉 Why listen?
Impact has a measurement problem 😕.
It can be hard enough when you’re counting litres or kilowatts, but measuring your impact when you’re restoring the ocean is next level.
A coral reef is different to a kelp forest is different to a mangrove. So how do you standardise impact so it’s easy to package up and present to funders as valuable, measurable and verifiable?
That’s where the name Seatrees was born.
One sea tree is one unit of impact that can be applied to any marine ecosystem 🪸 🐟 🐠 🐡 🦀 🐋 🪸.
One planted mangrove seed is one sea tree 🌱.
One transplanted head of coral is one sea tree 🪸.
On square foot of kelp is (you guessed it) one sea tree 🥬.
Along with exceptional storytelling and a brand new real life ‘experiential home’ called the Sea House, being able to explain Seatree’s impact in simple, relatable terms has led the nonprofit to be one of the most successful of its size in the USA.
Co-founder Michael Stewart tells the story in S2E6 of the The Goodtrepreneur Podcast.
Tune in to learn:
💡 How the Seatrees idea began
🎙️ The importance of storytelling in the TikTok age
🌱 What it takes to restore an ecosystem from the ground up
🤨 Why Michael’s beanie is such a crazy bright shade of pink
Then go grow a sea tree at 👉 www.seatrees.org
We gave AI a listen. Here's what it had to say:
The ocean is the defining feature of our planet, yet we’ve explored only a sliver of it and we still struggle to explain why ocean restoration matters in day-to-day terms. We sit down with Michael Stewart, surfer, founder of Sustainable Surf and co-founder of Seatrees, to talk about a deceptively simple idea: if you want to regenerate marine ecosystems at scale, you need a unit of impact people can understand, trust and fund.
Michael breaks down the Seatrees model across kelp forests, mangroves, coral reefs and seagrass meadows, showing how a “sea tree” works as a measurable, countable outcome with monitoring and verification. We also dig into a hard case study from Northern California, where over 95% of bull kelp has disappeared since 2013–2014. You’ll hear how a multi-year marine heatwave set off a cascade, from disease wiping out the sunflower star to urchins booming and mowing down kelp, and why those ecological shifts translate into real economic pain for coastal communities.
From there, we get practical about what wins attention in a noisy world: storytelling that’s tangible, human and even fun, plus real-world spaces like the Sea House in Encinitas designed to turn curiosity into action. We finish with Michael’s advice for anyone wanting to do meaningful work, start with curiosity, volunteer, reach out, and become indispensable. If you care about marine conservation, ocean regeneration, blue carbon and climate resilience, hit play, then subscribe, share with a mate, and leave a review to help more people find the show.
Watch on YouTube (20 min mini-ep also available)
Full Episode Transcript
Singers 0:00
I'm gonna change this world today. Make those bad things go away.
Ben 0:04
So your favorite coastline is?
Michael Stewart 0:06
Alright, so my favorite coastline, it's always the one that I'm currently standing on. And in this case, it happens to be my hometown of Bolinas, California, which is only about an hour north of San Francisco. It's a cool little surf town, a great little vibe, and uh a wonderful place to call home and to be really grounded from.
Ben 0:22
Sounds like heaven. So today we're heading underwater and diving into the world of kelp, starfish, mangroves, and more. Why? Because the ocean is an amazing place. Take humble old kelp, for example. It might look like seaweed to you and me, but just this one species lives along more than a quarter of the world's coastline, creating underwater forests that are an incredible store of carbon and home to millions of mollusks, fish, abalone, lobsters, and more. These natural factories also provide us with everything from food to pharmaceuticals, but only if we look after them. And sadly, we haven't been doing so. In fact, around 50% of the world's kelp forests have been destroyed in the last 50 years. Fortunately, Seatrees is on a mission to regenerate the health of our ocean planet. And co-founder Michael Stewart is joining us today from West Coast USA to tell us all about it. G'day, Michael.
Michael Stewart 1:13
Yeah, Ben, thanks for the invite here.
Ben 1:16
So you're a surfer. You grew up by the ocean. You've been vice chair of Surfrider Foundation in San Francisco. You're founder of Sustainable Surf. And as if that wasn't enough, you're now co-founder of Seatrees, which we're of course here to talk about today. Can you tell me how and when this obsession with the ocean began?
Michael Stewart 1:34
Well, uh, you know, considering that we all actually carry the ocean in our literal, you know, veins, right? The same, you know, salinity profile in the ocean is what we actually carry um in our veins. We came from the ocean and we brought it out with us. So with that in mind, I'm going with from day one. That's when the obsession with ocean really began, right? But I'd uh probably say that the first time that I can remember uh, you know, some of those first memories, I think that when you're young, they're so important. I do remember maybe being three or four or something like that, playing in the shore break. And I'm sure it wasn't a big wave, but it rolled in, knocked me over, and like swept me along um up the beach. And I thought it lasted for a minute or two, right? I'm just like tumbling and doing all this kind of stuff. But instead of being freaked out, I was kind of like, whoa, this is crazy. I went deposited you somewhere else, washed away, and then you sort of looked up and you got taken and transported to someplace really magical. That feeling has always stuck with me.
Ben 2:40
I grew up in the city and by the ocean. And I found I always needed a place that I could just look at 180 degrees of nothing. Well, I thought nothing, but actually nature. Because when you're surrounded all day by the intensity, it's this great escape. It's similar every day, but it's never the same. Yeah, indeed. Special place. So I spend most of my time on top of the ocean, but you're actually spending a time under the ocean as well, right? Which is it's almost like outer space in some ways, isn't it? So it's right there on our doorstep. We don't actually see into it very often. Very few of us put goggles on and actually spend the time under there. Um, but you do. So what changes have you seen in the ocean in your lifetime of loving it and spending time in it?
Michael Stewart 3:24
Let me go back to that point that you just made about the ocean being like outer space. We actually know way more about outer space than we do about the ocean that is literally the defining element of our entire planet. Isn't that crazy?
Ben 3:38
You know, I mean that is super crazy.
Ocean Changes We Can’t Ignore
Michael Stewart 3:40
Yeah, we've explored like two percent. And we know very little about you know how Auchi operates. Unfortunately, some of the places that I hold dearest, I have already seen changes in the last few decades, right? So take the absolute most recent example of that is right here in Northern California, we've lost over 95% of the historical bull kelp forest that used to be on this coastline just since 2013, 2014. It actually goes from San Francisco all the way up through Oregon and the state of Washington, and it's the exact same problem. And what happened in that particular case is that the impact of climate change directly in the ocean really showed what we're actually doing to the planet, right? So there was this piece of warm water called the warm blob, lasted for about three years, from 2014, 15, 16. And it was a marine heat wave, right? Like happens on the uh Great Barrier Reef, right? It also happened out here. And it wasn't, you know, three months, it was three years. And so that actually caused a bacteria to attack the starfish, all the species, right? It was actually called the starfish wasting disease. And the biggest impact really was that it took out one starfish in particular called the sunflower star. This thing is massive, dude. It gets to be almost a meter in width, 24 arms, and it's the most voracious starfish in the ocean. It looks like something of a horror movie that a six-year-old would design. And it's also the most beautiful thing that you've ever seen. And this thing will hunt urchins, sea urchins down, and can eat 40 to 60 a day. That was the last predator in the kelp forest ecosystem that was keeping the urchins, who are awesome, amazing little creatures. They're basically little cows. They're just grazers, right? And when they're at the right number, they're doing a super important job in that ecosystem. But when that last predator got completely knocked out and it's now functionally extinct on the West Coast, that's what triggered this cascade. Very quickly, with no predators, the uh purple sea urchin in this case overpopulated. Everyone had a big party, right? And got busy. And the next year the population size exploded and they very quickly ate basically the entire kelp forest. And we have yet to recover. So it's like those things. Sometimes it's quick, like, oh, I came back, you know, and every year there's a little less of this, you know, barrier island or a little less of this coral reef, or some parts were bleached, but it came back. And then other times, tipping point. It's those things where the system is doing what appears to be fine and all the way up into the moment until it's not. And I end with that example because it really does like set the overall stage for where we are dealing with the climate crisis and the biodiversity crisis. And that really is the nexus of where Seatrees as an organization is focused.
Ben 7:02
And that's where our work is actually directed towards. It is crazy how as humans we don't understand those kick-on effects.
Michael Stewart 7:09
Right.
Warm Blob And Starfish Wasting
Michael Stewart 7:10
Well, and also you know, think about this. I'll tell that to surfing friends, and they're like, that's a shame, but we don't get quite as tangled up if we're surfing or something. And then I go back and say, these are real social economic issues, right? So we had a $20 million red sea urchin fishery on the North Coast. That is gone. Gone. Done. That is real hard dollars taken out of these coastal communities here. The dive shops all shut down because there's no more kelp forests. We haven't had an abalone diving season. So all the people camping and getting beer and getting ice and buying gas, all of those things, those are all impacts of not actually having a kelp forest, let alone the impact for all the other fish, sea lions, the uh, you know, whales that used the kelp forest. So it isn't just like, oh, this one thing is gone. It's like, no, this is the heart of the entire ecosystem. Uh, think about it like this whether it's a kelp forest or a coral reef or a shellfish reef or whatever else, that's like the city. So you live in Sydney, right? Imagine if the infrastructure of Sydney was completely flattened. Where do people get their food? Where's their shelter? Where's, you know, where does education happen? Like that's how people should be thinking about this. It's like it's the wholesale destruction of the infrastructure upon which everything else hangs.
Ben 8:41
That's how important it actually is. It's nature's infrastructure, isn't it? Do you find that when you tell the story in those terms, people get it? Like we kind of don't care about nature, but we care when it affects us. Is that sadly the truth for some people? For some people, right?
Michael Stewart 8:56
And I'm so glad that you brought up how do you actually talk about these things, right? Because uh, you know, scientifically, if I was just to put a science framework around this, right, and talk about the trophic uh, you know, web and all these things, which are one way to really frame what this habitat or this infrastructure is actually doing. The other way is to talk about the stories that people can actually relate to, which is yeah, you want to go and take your family on the weekend camping trip, right? And you want to go surf and you want the kelp line out there to keep the wind down in the afternoon so that you and your kids can go surfing or you can teach someone about the joys of the ocean. And so when we're trying to get people to understand what's going on, we really bring in the coolness of what the ocean actually has from the animals to the activities, because those are the things that people actually uh you know care about. And they need something that like that's tangible that they can actually hold on to. And I actually have a very special guest that I brought to this interview.
Ben 10:03
Oh, good news. Do you want to meet him?
Michael Stewart 10:05
I 100% do. Okay. So this guy right here. Oh, wow. Is a purple sea urchin. And this guy's alive. It's got the coolest little sharpening teeth. But when you start telling the overall story of, oh, here's how this little critter moves, here's where they eat the kelp, here's how they gather it, you're actually creating an on-ramp for people to become interested, not just in the data that you have to talk about or the jargon that you can throw around. It's like, give people something real that they can actually tie on to. And I just brought this little purple sea urchin from the kelp forest restoration project that I was at just yesterday, right? And this is one of the little guys that we're taking out of the ecosystem because there is an overabundance of them. And by us reducing the overall numbers, we allow the natural regeneration to happen. We're actually starting to plant kelp so that we're creating a seed bank in that same place that can actually take hold there. This guy is actually going to be. I'm taking this to a friend's party, and we're gonna have fresh uni that just got brought from the sea. And then it's shell, and all the calcium and the uh little spines can be composted. We'll close that cycle. Um, I got this great thing here.
Ben 11:27
It's a pink beanie for anybody listening and not watching.
Michael Stewart 11:30
It's a pink beanie. Check it out. It's very handmade by a local artist friend, and this color was derived from the spines of the purple sea urchin. It makes the coolest pink color you've ever seen in the world, right? So you're using the spines as dye for the that's exactly right. Yeah. So so many ways to connect people in a really interesting artistic, economic way that's just way more interesting than listening to a scientist talk about how dire it is that we've lost all these things and the trophic web of life has been broken. All of which is fundamentally true, but we need people to actually pay attention. And you got to capture their attention in the first place, right? We are competing in this world with all the TikTok influencers and you know, the latest hit, the latest Marvel movie, and whatever else. And we actually have to recognize that. There are so many cool stories about that overall process. And it feels like people simply haven't been trying hard enough and haven't really understood that story is king and framing it in the correct way to get attention, create engagement, and then last but not least, provide an on-ramp to take action. And that's at the heart of what we actually do.
Ben 12:46
And I love how it starts with the positive. Just showing me that beanie is awesome because you go, look at this cool little beanie, it's got your nice little loads.
Michael Stewart 12:53
It's freaking beanie.
Ben 12:54
Then the story of where the dye came from and how by doing that, that dye is actually coming from basically an oversupply of urchins that if we can reduce their numbers, we'll actually help the urchins too, and becomes nature's little factory, right? For how we produce fundamentally a natural materials with a natural dye. You've entered me on a very positive conversation instead of talking about the negative, which is really easy to fall into when we're talking about environmental issues, right? There you go. So, speaking of stories, you actually have a nice little video on your website. It seems from what I gathered from the story. Tell me if I got the story right, that at least in the San Francisco coast, what you're doing is pulling out some of the urchins so that there's less of them, less hungry little mouths to feed. That gives the kelp a chance to regenerate. But you're also, there's a, I saw there's a laboratory actually growing the starfish too. My favorite story. So you've actually picked all the pieces of the ecosystem. Obviously, you can't cool the ocean. That would be the best one, right? If you could solve that problem. But but you're actually literally breaking down nature's system and improving each one of those pieces to create a holistic solution. Um, tell me about that, because that's where C-tree started, right?
Michael Stewart 14:05
Yeah, thanks for bringing that up because it's such a great way of actually thinking about the overall problem. So, as you said, the ultimate solution that still has to happen is we have to reduce the use of fossil fuels, which is warming up the overall planet, 25% of that carbon and an enormous amount of heat that is also generated is going directly into the oceans. That's what's causing all these changes, right? We're working on that part in a different part of the overall business. But when it comes down to the individual ecosystems, we're basically taking a different approach with different nonprofit partners that
Urchin Barrens And Tipping Points
Michael Stewart 14:45
we're helping to fund and bring best practices to. And on the Kelp side of things, yeah. So there are local diving groups that are removing urchins or even culling them in the ocean space, depending on the overall permit that they have, right? That's one part. It's like we have to reduce the number of urchins. Great. Next is we actually have to put the predators back into the system. There's no way to rebalance that overall system if there is no top predator there, right? So in that case, we're helping to fund this great little lab called the Sunflower Star Lab. It's actually on Monterey Bay. And that's its whole fascinating story. But basically, all the starfish in California were wiped out. The only place that the sunflower starfish were left were in two aquariums that were not connected to the ocean. That's the last like six sunflower starfish and the whole West Coast were in these aquariums. So they actually took these guys, put on some very white music, you know, and a you know, sneaky cup of wine. Um and with that reproductive material, they've given it out to a number of different labs to essentially say, we don't know anything about sunflower starfish, like life cycle or reproduction or how any of this works. Please try to figure something out here, right? And that lab has done the best job out of all of them in terms of raising like healthy, happy little sea stars that actually know what they're hunting for and uh you know how to get it. I literally saw them from the microscope in the beginning. Now they're like this big. Uh so I don't know, you know, maybe like a small saucer, right? And they actually just got their first field trip to the ocean. So the lab got a permit to basically take a number of these out into the ocean in a contained box and whatever else, and leave them there for uh 24 hours so that they got their first taste of the real ocean, right? Because you're essentially trying to show through the laboratory's work that this is possible, that it can work and it will work, and it won't mess anything up in terms of putting these animals back out into the ocean so that you're not introducing any pathogens or whatever else. And that's how you actually have to think about these problems, which are very, very complex. So that's how we think about solving this problem. We have to put the predator, the uh top predators back into the system. And then we have to actually create the conditions on the ground for the kelp to be able to come back naturally, because we will never take enough urchins out of the ocean or crush them. But what we can do is be the catalyst that creates the conditions for the natural systems that the ocean has to bring itself back to life. And that's one of the most important things that I want to stress here, right? Is that that's how our efforts should really be looked at. We are this catalyst that will get natural regeneration, which is how the earth and these ecosystems have always brought themselves back from catastrophes. We need to get them going again. And once they do, it's actually going to be hard to stop them.
Ben 17:56
So it's human intervention to restart nature's natural processes, really. Well, we're the ones that broke it. True that. Um, we've got the divers, we've got the lab that's making the sunflowers starfish. We've got a lot of organizations. You haven't mentioned sea trees. What how do sea trees fit into all this and kind of coordinate all this and make it happen?
Michael Stewart 18:17
Yeah, well, uh, I'm so glad you asked because even in most of our films, right, we're highlighting and showing the real heroes, which are the people that are on the ground doing the actual work, the scientists, the conservation, the uh you know, community members, all that. Because the role of sea trees is to really understand that the story has to be told. The story has to actually get out to the world, the funds have to be raised, right? The science and the data, the transparency behind what's happening, the documentation so that um when donors around the world, including you know some of the biggest brands in the world that are our partners in this, that they can actually trust that when the money is being donated to us, that it's having the type of impact that it actually has. Because one of the things that I learned early on was in the ocean space, because coral reefs are different than kelp forests, they're different than seagrass meadows, they're different
Communities Hit When Kelp Vanishes
Michael Stewart 19:20
than mangrove forests, they're different, you know, than uh coastal watersheds and shellfish reefs and things like that. It was so hard to try to talk about the commonalities that all these systems have. Basically, we needed a unit of measurement and a unit of impact. And ta-da, that's where the name sea tree was actually born. So I know that you were asking, like, cool, okay, so what is the sea tree, right? Well, a sea tree is gonna be different depending on the ecosystem that the project is actually happening, right? So if it's in a mangrove forest, that sea tree is gonna be one mangrove seedling and it gets grown into an actual tree. If it's a coral reef uh restoration project, that's gonna be one fragment of coral that is grown online, outplanted, and turns into a brand new thriving reef, right? If it's uh kelp, we'll do it in a square foot. So a sea tree is really this unit of impact and measurement that can be measured, validated, and counted. And that's what the donors, especially businesses, which we really focus on, need in order to know what they're doing with their money and is the impact real and is it actually happening? So that's what we bring to our partners is we bring the ability to say, we know how to tell stories, to create them, we know where the pots of money are, we know how to go after them and get them, and we know how to bring the monitoring, verification, and reporting that a marketplace that we're trying to build to support this is going to demand.
Ben 21:00
So, what you found is people who are on the ground actually doing the work. In a way, you're helping coordinate them so you have this ecosystem approach rather than you're doing that bit, that bit. You're then providing, I guess, the overarching infrastructure that they don't have the capability to do. And that comes down to telling each story, but also the cohesive story. You're also providing the measurement system, which they probably wouldn't have. You've actually created the measurement system through the concept of a sea tree. And then you're providing an overarching funding mechanism to it. So, and that is a very scalable model because like we've talked about California's kelp forests. But looking at your um impact today, you've California to Kenya to Cambodia to Costa Rica, you've actually got a goal to support 100 projects globally, and you're probably not that far off it. In some places it's mangroves, in some places it's coral, in some places it's kelp. So you you've actually created this really nice, holistic way to affect the entire ocean. I will move to the funding in a minute because it's such an important part of this, as you know, but I just You want to take it right back. How did you figure that out? And then when you've got that idea, where do you begin? Like you go, oh, I see the problem. I need this. But to go from I see the problem, the opportunity to actually be doing this is a pretty big deal. Yeah, you know, um uh Ben, how do you eat an elephant?
Michael Stewart 22:16
I don't eat a lot of elephants, but I have no idea how to eat an elephant, but I do know, right, that the longest journeys in the world, they all still begin with that one step. Or if you're a California gray whale that's uh you know migrating from down Baja all the way up to Alaska, and we have projects all along their routes and overall stops, then it's going to begin, you know, with that first uh you know flipper pole. But this really did start from this idea of what if we looked at conservation and restoration in just a fundamentally uh you know different way? That it wasn't simply let's start a nonprofit filled with great people and good intentions and try to ask people for money so that we could do good in the world, throw a gala, do a dinner, do a bake sale, right? Right and try to raise a trivia night at the bar, right? So many options. Oh, yeah, exactly. Yeah. Movies in the car park. I come from being an entrepreneur and starting up businesses that did some really cool and unique things. And I just figured this structure is the best way, if you actually want to solve a problem or do something, that there is, period. And that's not just my opinion. It's like, look at who has the money, look who has the impact in the world. And it's for better or for worse, in many cases, it's been the worst side of things. It's the biggest brands and corporations out there, the smallest brands and corporations, the mid-size, right? They're all using that same model. Why aren't environmental nonprofits trying to harness the power that that model actually has? Right. So it really wasn't a genius move. It was a, why don't we just do that? Because that is successful, that is scalable. And could we come up with this, you know, overarching unit that could go across all these different places and have a unifying fact? It's like zeros and ones, Ben, right? The digital world wouldn't be here today if someone hadn't essentially had the idea of like, well, everything can be represented in a bit, right? It's either on or it's off. It's a zero or a one. And you can build anything you want from that
Stories Artefacts And Purple Urchins
Michael Stewart 24:35
simple equation, right? So that's what we're doing with the sea tree. And um, let me bring this back to the uh interview that you did with uh Kate from uh 1% for the planet, right? Okay. So she's amazing. And that model has actually proven itself to be incredibly effective. What do they raise now? About $846 million, right? To help restore our home planet. For sea trees, I want us to be the catalyst for raising $846 billion for our ocean planet. And if you think I'm just joking, then they obviously haven't read your website, where you basically make the case that, hey, um, Patagonia is a billion-dollar company, right? And that's a big pile of money, but it's a rounding error for some of the biggest businesses in the world. Um, but the case that you make, it's part of the reason I wanted to come on here was you clearly understand the value of a catalyst, because what Patagonia did was catalyze about $2 trillion worth of economic activity that is following more or less the same model that Patagonia has essentially set up of a business doing good and doing well at the same time. And so that economic model that we're talking about here, particularly for the oceans, specifically for conservation, needed and does need that single unit that the impact and the finance and the monitoring and everything else can basically use. It needs the zeros and ones, and that's what a sea tree is.
Ben 26:13
You standardize impact. And in a way, you know, I've always said that nonprofits, they sell impact in a funny way.
Michael Stewart 26:19
It's the product at the end of the day.
Ben 26:20
That is the product, right? And therefore, if you can simplify that product and make that a um easy to purchase, like any product, then you're gonna sell more products. And so fundamentally, that's the core of your business model, right? Is to basically go to these brands, corporates, and go, I know you want to buy impact, but you want to know that you're buying real impact, and you want to be able to tell the story of that impact, both in stories, which is you know, nice videos and that, but also in stats, this many sea trees, which you're up to five million, I might add. That's a lot of sea trees. Obviously, you've found that's a very positive story for brands and corporates. Which sorts of ones have you found have been most interested? Is it like ocean-based organizations? Or do you think more generally everyone's like, no, we get it. Oceans like really important to everything.
Michael Stewart 27:05
Oceans are hot, man. Oceans are hot today. Exactly. Um, yeah, but to be serious for just a second, many of the first movers and shakers with us that you know on this journey have been from the ocean space. But maybe one of the most surprising things is that, yeah, we've, I think we have over 300 brand partners right now. And it's across every single vertical. Yeah. Um, show me another small to mid-sized nonprofit that has that, right? And it's not tooting our own horn, but it is to say that this model works. You should steal this model. Every other NGO group out there or founders thinking about uh essentially starting one should steal this idea, which is your impact, that is what you're selling. You need a way to sell this. You need to turn your impact into a product. For us, that's called a sea tree, right? That is what you actually have to sell. You have a product just like any other business. And your product is the most needed product on the planet. Like that's that's how real this is. And that's how simple and simplified this should actually be. So you're also gonna have to learn how, in the same way that I found, like, you need to understand how marketing works and how products work and product cycles and all of these things, all of this infrastructure which is already there, already operating, um, for you to basically tap into to fundamentally create the impact, the positive impact that you want to see in the world.
Ben 28:44
It really is a commercial overlay on a bunch of do-gooding going on.
Michael Stewart 28:48
Yeah. And so Kate from 1% for the planet really made that case, right? Of like, of if we can get 1% of uh you know net going to these problems that we're trying to address, it can have a fundamentally game-changing role. Imagine if every single financial transaction on the planet had something connected to it. That's what I'm talking about when I'm talking about, oh, I want mine to be $846 billion. And it easily can. Because when you start to have this unit of measurement that can go into financial systems, and you want to talk to Visa and say, hey, listen, for every single transaction on you know, this set of cards, maybe it's just travel cards, right? You have some portion that gets allotted to a portion of a sea tree. It's on the blockchain, it's measurable, it's monitored, it's verified, it's uh no one's promise. It's there to actually see. That's when the game will essentially be changed. Um, and I would say that we've been putting in the time and work to basically figure out if this is possible, figure out how to make that work, uh, figure out how to turn conservation, restoration into a real business that can compete and compete with story that is so much better than anything else out there. And we're not just a one-off thing. As we we start to work with other groups in this, we start building a more robust, stronger ecosystem of players in there. And the more players an ecosystem has, the stronger and more resilient it actually is. Um, I see a wave, a very positive blue wave of restoration, conservation, and economic stability and activity and resilience rising up right now. Um we're part of that. Um, and there's a lot of people in front of us that were leading the way. Patagonia would certainly uh you know be one of them, but there's thousands of businesses there, right? And there's thousands and thousands of organizations behind us that are hungry for this, that want to do this, that are looking for a model that's actually going to work. So if we can play that catalyst role and provide case studies for how this actually works, then we're doing our job.
Ben 31:10
Scalable model for saving our home planet. I love it. Uh, incidentally, there is a uh, if you listen to I think episode six of this podcast, there's Glenn and Maddie who have a thing called Green Pay, where they're basically trying to take over the F Boss Visa MasterCard
Restoring Kelp With Science Partners
Ben 31:25
world and um divert that money to nature. And we did work out at some point if 1% of everything that was spent on this planet went to the planet, probably be pretty big impact. So I love that because it is a scalable model that puts this. It's repeatable. Totally repeatable, scalable. It's exactly what the nonprofit world needs, right? And the product is very easy to understand. Um, I want to move on to another product though that you guys have been working on, which is biodiversity credits, which is a whole other way of generating funding for this sort of thing. I personally do know what a biodiversity credit is, but for the nice listeners out there, could you please explain it?
Michael Stewart 32:01
Ben, no one knows what a biodiversity credit is. Why would you? How could you, right? Um, that's actually been a really interesting thing, right? So obviously I'm joking, but a biodiversity credit, really, it's again, it's another unit of measurement and impact intended to fund the conservation and restoration of biodiversity around the planet. It's not specific to the ocean, but the biodiversity credits that some of our projects and one day all of our projects will be producing are focused on coastal ecosystems and really provide this repeatable, scalable, understandable, and transactionable model that any group can actually use to create the impact that they want to see in the world. WWF or the World Wildlife Foundation came out with a report maybe about a year ago, maybe it was two, but they basically said out of all the populations of animals in the world that were actually monitoring and recording, we've lost 75% of the actual like volume of animals that we've been measuring. In about 50 years, right? Yeah. Um, in less than 50 years, right? And in that same 50 years, we've also lost half the world's coral reefs, half the world's mangroves, half the world's kelp forests. You see a pattern happening here, Ben? Um and you know, again, that's us. And so the obvious answer to the question, oh, well, if it's us that did that, then it's got to be us that needs to uh wind that back and replace it and make it better than it was before. And I guess, you know, I'm not Pollyannish or I'm paying attention to the news and the science and to David Attenborough and the work that comes out of the UN Climate uh Council and all those. Um, I understand the moment of danger, like the existential crisis that we're actually in around both biodiversity and climate, but there are pathways forward. This is not an issue of we don't have the right tools or we don't know what to do. We know exactly what to do. We simply have to have the political will and we have to start putting capital towards making this happen. And that is the task at hand, right? And we can do that.
Ben 34:21
Well said. Couldn't agree with you more. I'm gonna move us on because you've discussed a lot in there, but funding is kind of where we began. But back to stories and engagement and all those sorts of things. Um, you've obviously done a great job in the digital realm, but you've funny enough, you know, the world's gone from real world to digital. You're actually going back to real world by setting up a purpose-built space in San Diego to engage people and educate people and excite people. Uh, tell me about that.
Michael Stewart 34:48
Okay. Again, I literally just stole this from the best operating for-profit brands in the world. So the digital marketplace is absolutely saturated right now, right? Completely full. How many more ads can a car company or a soap company like try to throw at you across, you know, the digital platforms? Everyone hates ads, everyone's trying to avoid it, and they're just trying to push and push it. The biggest brands out there have basically said we can't actually reach anyone else by having another ad uh come on their device, right? But what we can get, and what we need to start doing, is to have these in-person or in real life experiential places where people can see what the hell we do, experience us, have real time with the overall product and our brand and storytelling and whatever else. And that's exactly what we're doing. So we're starting our own brand house, which is called the Sea House. Um makes sense. Yeah. And it's uh located in Encinitas, California, which is in San Diego. Encinitas is one of the coolest little surf towns, kind of like Bolinas, but a little bit bigger. Very artsy, very crafty, very um Australian in many ways. Good food, good surf, uh, lots of free time. If there's ever waves, it doesn't seem like anyone's working, right? Um, the lineups are all full. But there's a really engaged community around the ocean and the ocean spaces in San Diego, California. And there's also really rich, in-depth scientific knowledge. And very specific, there's the uh Scripps Institution of Oceanography, which is one of the major global leaders for how the ocean works and specific to us. So at the Seahouse, where we are essentially creating the home for ocean culture to live in Southern California, we're going to be bringing all these three things together. So, surf and ocean culture, the restoration, conservation partners and know-how, and the scientific expertise that's coming there from the educational institutions and bringing them together in this one really like rich, bubbling cultural stew. And we're going to focus that energy on bringing back Southern California's giant kelp force because they've essentially had the same fate as the kelp force up here in Northern California. It's going to be incredible. We've actually partnered with the uh Rob Machado Foundation and other local surf and film and ocean festivals. We're going to be doing programming on a uh weekly basis. So this is not like a pop-up, you know, sort of brand house thing. This has got real staying power. And we're going to be bringing people together to have a great time, good food, good music, really engaging content. And we're going to provide a way for them to take action for the ocean ecosystems right there at the Seahouse.
Ben 37:53
So celebrate your love of the ocean and what and then learn what you can do about it.
Michael Stewart 37:56
What was really interesting, right, is that when we were thinking about all the events and the other places that we go to to try to get this overall message out, right? So the film fests and the concerts and you know, sort of expos and whatever else, the beach cleanups. We figured, you know, the ocean is literally at the epicenter of Southern
What A Sea Tree Measures
Michael Stewart 38:20
California's identity and its economic backbone, um, technology, science, tourism, real estate, all these things, surf culture, right? And yet there's no home for ocean culture in Southern California. How crazy is that? There's groups doing things, great groups, um, you know, Save the Waves and uh, you know, Surfrider Foundation and uh, you know, Wildcoast and whatever else. But there is no place where if you want to soak up ocean culture every single week and do something, there is no home for it. That's why we're creating this.
Ben 38:52
It's a great idea. I mean, as you say, surf films and that everyone loves a surf film night. If there was one every week, even better, right? And there's there's some good beers around all this too. There's uh you made a habit there. We've got one called single fin, which is, you know, you get these sort of surf beers that fit quite nicely in among all. I love those. Yeah, yeah.
Michael Stewart 39:09
Oh, yeah, definitely. We have um our favorite wine partner is actually called Head High Wine. Um, same vibe, right?
Ben 39:18
Double overhead. That's the port brand, double overhead. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Michael Stewart 39:23
Right. Yeah, that's the extra strength.
Ben 39:25
Yeah. I'm gonna move on to you, because you are a very, you come across at least as a very positive individual, you know. It's we've talked about some pretty tough stuff here, but we've talked about it in a very, very positive way as in terms of solution and celebration. And you know, you're working hard, clearly, you're doing good things, but you know, you're dealing with heavy things. How do you personally stay positive in a world that can be full of negative information?
Michael Stewart 39:50
You know, yeah. Um, you know, I guess I'm lucky to be able to get um into the ocean, maybe not every day, but literally I can ride my bike just a few blocks and even just look over the uh, you know, bluff there, right? So yeah, things do get heavy. It's a very heavy time. And let's just take a moment. It might date this overall podcast, but um the world's in a pretty dark place right now with war going on, a lot of challenges on the economic side of things. The government in the United States seems to be acting in strange, weird, erratic ways that doesn't seem to have a positive benefit for not only us here, but for the rest of the world. So these are all things you're like, oh, I just want to go surf. Um and thank goddess um that being connected to something that is as timeless and omnipresent as the ocean in that space, it really does provide deep healing medicine for my soul. I think what's also really interesting about that, have you heard of a book called Blue Mind by uh Wallace J. Nichols? I haven't I have now. New York Times bestseller. You got to go get it. So Jay Nichols was actually one of my mentors. He's actually passed on now, but he wrote this incredible book called Blue Mind. And it was really about the science, the neuroscience of what happens when you are in and around or under, or literally even thinking about water and your brain, the chemicals that are released, the endorphins, all of those things, like the sound of the ocean. You don't even have to be by the actual ocean. It was tapping into this really primal thing about humans. Um, I kicked us off on this journey talking about we literally carry the vestige of coming from the ocean within our own bodies, our blood, the same salinity as the ocean. When we came out of it, we simply brought the ocean with us. And there's something about, you know, thinking and hearing and being immersed. And whether you're in a pool, if you're a kid in the city and you can only get into a pool, it has very similar effects on this one, right? So I'm taking sort of my story of like, um, how do I do it? I'm lucky enough to be by uh the ocean and I can get to it on a regular basis. But even like watching videos and movies and hearing sounds, those are all ways that we can tap in to what is perhaps one of the biggest mental health boosts that you can actually have, which is to start to cultivate and create the sense of blue mind in your own mind. It does. It's a wellspring, if you will, or it's a very deep well of healing that is actually available to all of us.
Ben 42:41
I think most people are drawn to water, whether it's, you know, as soon as there's a river, let's jump in. You're right, pool. Like kids are just like, if there's a pool, they'll spend five hours in it. That's that they'll get out to eat.
Michael Stewart 42:52
Hey, they'll jump in it. Right, right, exactly. I mean, like you literally, there's something that's hardwired in humans about that. And let's race towards that, right?
Ben 43:01
So get in the water, good for the mental health. That's where the engagement is, right? That's actually, I get this answer in very different ways from different people. Everybody fundamentally gathers around the idea of spend time in nature. For some people, it's forests and mountains, but me, I'm with you. I'm 100% get in the ocean and everything's okay again. It's right. Unless there's a hundred people in the lineup and you can't get away. But um, then it's just annoying. Yeah. Um well, you know what?
Michael Stewart 43:25
Yeah. And then, you know, that's where you have that change in mindset too. You're like, you know what? It's true. Let it go. I'm going left. That's true, right? You're like, I'm gonna get, you know, I'm gonna take the soft top one, pull the fins out of it, and I'm just gonna go slide my brains out on this left and try something new. And I don't need the biggest and best wave. And it really is about you tapping into that more positive blue mind state.
Ben 43:51
It's very interesting you say that actually. For all the non-surfers out there, we're talking about a very, very, very busy surf break and how you deal with it. Often I find I've seen Is a challenge. Is there just some tiny little wave somewhere that only breaking a little bit, but nobody's noticed it? And I can just go and you know get some little ones. And then it's a challenge of what can I make
Scaling Funding Like A Business
Ben 44:10
of this tiny wave? Even though it's a bit too small and maybe closing out or not quite breaking right. How can I maximize what I do? And it's a very positive kind of thing, isn't it?
Michael Stewart 44:19
Learning how to very creative thing, isn't it? Yeah.
Ben 44:22
How to make the most of what's available to you. Surfing can be like that. Some days it's perfect and it's just you get to fix it on delicious waves. And other days it's like, wow, how am I going to get three good waves out of this?
Michael Stewart 44:33
Let's figure this out. You know, yeah. And as a parent, right? It's like those are the exact types of skills that you are trying to teach and transfer because those are applicable in whatever you actually choose to focus on, right? So make the most of what you got. Yeah, that's exactly it.
Ben 44:51
Um, what's one thing people are surprised by when they find it out about you?
Michael Stewart 44:55
Uh I get to work in the marine science spaces and I'll go up and I'll speak at the UN and I get to work with all kinds of world-class uh you know scientists, and I literally have zero experience in my background, in my formal training background, um, that should allow me to actually do this. I went to art school. Creativity. Right. And I've always been interested in how you know business works. And so all I did was take what I already had and say, I want to apply it to this problem because I love the ocean, I love being in it, I need to start giving back because as a surfer or even, you know, someone who's um got a boat or someone who's paddling or like whatever else, it's like if we're just using the ocean space, for me, with all the challenges that the ocean is actually facing, there was some cognitive dissonance of like, I'm using this, I'm getting, you know, like I build my life around being close to this, but I'm not actually giving back here. Um, and so I basically just said, great, what are the problems that my unique skill set, if I put them together, could actually help solve? And this is not about me, this is about everyone else that is like, oh, well, I'm not a scientist or I'm not a marine biologist, or I'm not a materials specialist. It's like, if all those people that are qualified to do the right thing haven't done anything yet, that should be telling you something. It's like you need to get in there with the skills that you actually have because I've found that typically the outsiders are the ones that know how to see where that little wave is that no one has noticed it's actually breaking and how to do the best that you can and become the game changers that no one actually even saw. It's like the best ideas do not always come from the White Tower of uh academia. In fact, the ideas that typically get implemented are the ones that come from the ground up.
Ben 46:59
Totally. Well, they're built from real world experience. Um and a lot of what you speak of there is the ability to actually, I suspect this didn't come from art school, I suspect it's inherent in you, but one of the things you speak of there is the ability to bring other people together and provide the create the space. It's uh it's Gandalf in Lord of the Rings, right? That's he at the end it was revealed he has the ring that has the power to bring together other people's powers. Isn't that amazing? Lovely feast in that.
Michael Stewart 47:22
Yeah, it's definitely a team sport, right? I mean, like this is uh yeah, and you know, that's the uh uh if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, bring everybody you can because you're going to actually need them. And if you want to make any difference, if you want to have impact in this world, then um you can't just build something that works for you. You need to actually build something that you can invite other people into and have what you're asking them to do be so cool and so interesting that that's the story that they want to be connected to individually.
Ben 47:56
That's the secret. That is great wisdom.
Michael Stewart 47:58
Take and run with it.
Ben 48:00
Oh, yeah. So you may have already answered this in the last question, but um, if someone wants to follow in your footsteps, you know, someone's thinking, wow, this is so cool. I want to be like Michael, I want to like surf heaps and speak at the UN and like bring together awesome scientific and everybody else people and and regenerate some part of nature, whether it be under or above the water, where do they begin?
Michael Stewart 48:24
Yeah, um, that's always the toughest question to actually answer, right? Because I didn't have a blueprint when I started this, uh, but the skill set that you need, there's one trait in particular, and that is curiosity, right? Being curious about what's possible. A friend of mine that does ocean literacy, uh Lindsay, from this org called uh Protect Blue that we've been working with for a long time, she always starts these meetings or gatherings by saying, How might we do this? Because it doesn't have to be the most complete solid answer and a plan. It's like, how might you start thinking about doing this thing? And at the core of that is real like curiosity about how the world actually works and what's in it and how you know amazing it is that even as messed up as many of our systems right now, um, it's a joy and a gift that we actually get to be here at all. Sure is. And being curious about how that actually works has been the I would say that all the people that I've ever hired for sea trees have brought that. They may not have had the exact skill set that I needed or I thought that I needed in that moment, but what they are bringing is the ability to think creatively, be really curious about the world, start from where their own passion is, right? I love mountains, I love rivers, I love jumping off of cliffs with a paraglider. That's great. But my real passion is rooted in the ocean. So if you start from that place in that space and have real curiosity about how the world works and this understanding that you actually
Biodiversity Credits And Capital
Michael Stewart 50:15
can make the difference that you want to make, then those are the key ingredients. After that, it's sending out emails, it's volunteering your time, it is calling everybody up and bugging them. It is making yourself useful and ultimately indispensable. You know, those are the people that will find a place in these ecosystems. I can't say exactly how or when for any group, but that is at least on the startup side of things, right? Those are the ingredients that founders like myself really, that's what we're ultimately looking for, because business models may even change. But if you have a great person who is creative, inquisitive, curious, and can show up on time and not completely blow off the job when the waves turn on, then that's a great person. And we need to, you know, gather great people with us in order to go far.
Ben 51:15
So love of the cause, curiosity as to what might be the solution, belief you can actually solve it, and then determination to keep doing it, and part of that showing up when even when the surf's good occasionally. It's a very, very good set of needs, if you like. I think anyone can follow. Actually, funny enough, too, as I've found, obviously, you and I are not at the start of our careers. And so, you know, you when you're at the start, you're like, what do I need to make happen, be who I want to be? Whereas I as I've gotten older, I've gone, what do I need to keep being it? You know, and it's funny, I've come to the conclusion that two things, if I want to stay young, one is stay fit, there's a physical element, but the other is stay curious, and that's the mental element. Part of curious is positive. If you can stay curious and positive, but I think curiosity makes you positive, right? Because you're constantly finding new things.
Michael Stewart 52:03
They're they're completely wrapped together, right? And yeah, um, so I'm really curious. Um, you've gone through one season of your uh you know podcast, um, I've seen some great people on it. And I can tell that you're good at listening and filtering out and trying to see common uh you know connections here. So what have you seen so far in all the founders that you've been able to actually talk to? So if a young person came back to you, Ben Peacock, and was like, what do I need to do to start my journey and to end up in the place that I want to be? Where's your wisdom, the condensed wisdom of all the people that you've been able to actually talk to? And I bet, I bet you're probably gonna put this into some kind of a book form so that everyone can actually make use of this.
Ben 52:53
That is the plan. But um, there are a few things, and I'll forget to say them all now, obviously, because you've totally put me on the spot by reversing the interview situation here. Um you like that? Yeah, yeah, I love it. Well done. I think the first one has got to be, as you say, uh a curiosity and interest in the problem. They definitely have that. The second is often they set themselves a very simple goal that they can use both for themselves and others as a rallying cry. You know, there's a great brand interview called um Good Citizens Sunglasses, and they're like, they just wanted to get uh plastic bottles out of waterways and off beaches and that. And they wanted to go, well, how do we create a pull-through of that so it has value, that that garbage? And they went, oh, the bottle weighs, I think, 14 grams or 17 grams. Oh, sunglasses weigh the same. And you know, so they they started out. Simple rate metrics, that unit, right? Spot on, one bottle, one pair. So that really, which is what you've done, one sea tree, and we need like God knows how many million sea trees. So that simplification has been crucial, as I say, to then the communication piece of it. There's an absolute doggered determination. You know, I've spoken to people who have had to create entire supply chains to do what they want to do. And like they've just gone, when you're trying to create a supply chain, it's just no, no, no, it can't be done. And they've just gone, well, I'm just gonna do it. So there is that determination.
Michael Stewart 54:16
You are going to get lots of no's. Yeah, you know, so in the same way that sunglass folks are like, wait, we have to have this supply chain so that we have custody, that it works. We had to do the exact same thing. No one's ever tried to build a supply chain of uh, you know, sea trees across six different types of ecosystems um around
Sea House And Blue Mind
Michael Stewart 54:35
the world. But really, we look at our sea trees units as this overall supply chain. And you will get a lot of no's, a lot of no's. It's not that you shouldn't listen to them. You should look at what they may be telling you in the overall margins. But if you have a vision pushing through, no one is going to tell you that's the best idea in the world. Here you go. It really does take that uh, you know, what I call grit and yeah, that drive to keep going forward because you actually know that you might not have the perfect solution, but you know where you're driving towards.
Ben 55:11
Yeah. And I think for my part, I've found there's two types of no's. There's no, it just can't be done. And there's no, I don't want to do it. I can't be bothered. You know, and you gotta figure out which no you're getting. You know, and probably the last factor that there's more, but the one that um always strikes me is because you hit on it. You said you had no experience in this space. Almost every single founder I've spoken to came from that. There's a interesting. Yeah, there's a lady who does snowware for people with bigger and smaller booties and stuff that she basically split her pants one day and realized all her friends were doing the same while she was snowboarding and went, Well, I'm just gonna make it for like us women who don't fit ordinary snowboards. She had no experience in that industry. The sunglasses I spoke to you about, zero experience in that industry. Almost, it's almost a superpower to go into an industry that you know nothing about because it forces the curiosity and it forces you to question the rules. And I think that's the most, probably the most interesting take of all I've found is that it is that creativity comes from that, and it's that creativity that creates the change that we need versus having learned, you know, this is how things are done, therefore this is how they have to be done. So that's probably the last one.
Michael Stewart 56:20
Thank you.
Ben 56:21
Um thank you.
Michael Stewart 56:22
I want to hear all of them uh in that book because yeah, maybe the last thing we can leave people with is that um it's a learning journey. I don't care how much you think you know, there's always more um, you know, to actually learn and to put into good practice. So um, you know, there's a like, isn't that wonderful? Right. It's like we're never done. The work goes on long after you've gone. And if you can make and create space that can create an ecosystem of positivity that other people can come and take part in and thrive and take it past where you've been able to take it, that's the kind of legacy that I think is worth leaving.
Ben 57:04
Beautifully said. We should leave it there just to because we've spoken about a lot of things. Yeah, exactly. Before you go, so where do I find out more? Because obviously we talk about corporate sponsors and that, but people can actually individually donate at seatrees.org, correct? S-E-A-T-R-E-E-S
Curiosity Grit And Where To Start
Ben 57:20
.
Michael Stewart 57:21
That's exactly right. Just put it into your favorite search engine, sea trees, and you'll find us on socials, you'll find us on the website. Come find us in real life, IRL, as the kids say these days, Ben. Um, at the Sea House. There are so many ways to get involved. There's a small number of our projects that aren't as uh remote as down in the wilds of uh you know Baja or out in Indo or in Kenya that people can actually come and get their hands dirty and their feet wet. Um, and if you can't do that, there's an amazing number of projects that you can simply uh hop on your mobile device and be planting sea trees within about 30 seconds. If you can order a pizza or whatever else from your phone, you already know how to plant a sea tree.
Ben 58:12
Oh, well said. Get online to help the offline world.
Michael Stewart 58:15
That's right. It's all connected.
Ben 58:17
Thank you. It's been wonderful talking with you and I love what you're doing. Keep curious, keep saving the world.
Michael Stewart 58:22
That's it. Ben, thanks so much. Um, and thanks for what you do, man. Gathering these voices um and distilling that wisdom down into something that other people can use for their own dreams and goals. That's what it's about, man. So kudos to you. Keep up the good work. Thank you. I'm gonna change this world today. Make those bad things go away.
Singers
I'm gonna change this world today make those bad things go away
