World Ocean Council (WOC) CEO, Paul Holthus, engaged with stakeholders from business, government, science, environment and other communities at major Arctic events in Tromso, Norway in late January 2017.

At the Arctic Business Council Summit, Holthus outlined the WOC initiative to develop Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) targets and indicators particularly relevant to Arctic industries.

The specific Arctic business SDG initiative will be developed as part of the broader, ongoing WOC efforts to work with and for the Ocean Business Community on the SDGs. The initiative will build on and complement the formal SDGs that have been adopted by the United Nations. The WOC will work with Arctic Business Council members and other companies to develop relevant, meaningful and practical Arctic Business SDG targets and indicators for sustainable development that enable Arctic businesses to demonstrate and report on implementation of the UN SDGs.

At the Arctic Frontiers conference, Holthus was invited speaker at both the Arctic Environment Forum and Arctic Business Opportunities session.

Participating in panels with government ministers as well as senior business, academic and environment leaders, he outlined the role of WOC in developing programs to advance ocean sustainable development in the Arctic. This includes the WOC Smart Ocean-Smart Industries program, which is working to scale up the use of industry vessels to collect ocean data in areas where information is needed to understand and monitor ocean conditions and change, such as the Arctic.