The Business of Saving the Ocean—with TIME's Justin Worland

For centuries, the ocean has been a place to extract value: fish, oil, minerals. But a growing wave of entrepreneurs and institutional investors are asking a different question. Can protecting the ocean become a business in itself? In this episode of Business For Good, Paul Shapiro speaks with Justin Worland, a journalist at Time magazine who recently published a cover feature on companies working to protect the world's oceans. Justin and Paul explore how firms like J.P. Morgan now frame ocean ecosystems as underpinning trillions of dollars in economic activity, and how that framing is opening doors for startups tackling everything from seaweed-based plastic alternatives to coastal protection infrastructure. Things You Will Learn: Why J.P. Morgan and other institutions now frame oceans as underpinning trillions of dollars in annual economic activity. How Notpla found product-market fit by selling seaweed packaging to sports stadiums rather than starting with individual consumers. Why many climate and ocean solutions are held back by business model gaps, not by missing technology. How the alternative seafood sector compares to the broader alternative meat market in terms of investor appetite and commercialization. Why fertilizer runoff and ocean dead zones may be a more urgent threat to marine ecosystems than plastic pollution. Tools & Frameworks Covered: Business Model Innovation Over Breakthrough Technology: The idea that many environmental solutions already have working technology; what they lack is a viable path to revenue, financing, and scale, particularly connecting insurance, public policy, and private capital. The Three Ps of Alternative Meat: Price, performance, and perception as the three barriers preventing wider consumer adoption of plant-based and cultivated proteins, with price competitiveness as the most critical lever. Premium-First Market Entry: Starting with institutional or high-volume buyers who can tolerate a green premium, then scaling toward price parity with broader markets, as demonstrated by Notpla's sports stadium strategy. #BusinessForGood #FutureOfFood #AlternativeProtein #SustainableBusiness