Doug Woodring Keynote Speaker

Founder and Managing Director of Ocean Recovery Alliance
One of Asia's leading experts on the topic of plastic pollution
UNEP Climate Hero, Winner of Prince's Prize for Innovative Philanthropy by Prince Albert of Monaco

Doug Woodring's Biography

Douglas Woodring is one of Asia’s leading experts on the topic of plastic pollution in the environment, and in 2018, he was awarded the coveted global Prince’s Prize for Innovative Philanthropy from Prince Albert II of Monaco for his work.

He is the Founder and Managing Director of Ocean Recovery Alliance, a non-profit organization focused on bringing innovative solutions, technology, collaborations and policy together to impact positive improvements for the health of the ocean. Most of its innovative plastic programs which involve societal change, like the Harvest Plastic Program and Jurisdictional Upswell, involve engaging stakeholders on land to prevent pollution in the first place. It was the first in the world to create a plastic footprinting methodology which was launched at the Clinton Global Initiative in 2010, as well as its Global Alert platform, one of the only apps in the world which allows people to report trash hotspots anywhere in the world’s waterways and coastlines. As a result, it one of the few NGOs to have worked with both the World Bank and United Nations Environment (UNEP) on the topic.

He is a UN Climate Hero for his efforts, and has written three reports with UNEP.

As an environmental entrepreneur, he also originated and initiated the Rebound Plastic Exchange, the first global trading platform of recycled plastic feedstock in a certified, verified manner.

Douglas has been a speaker at two sessions of the UN Plastic Treaty negotiations in Nairobi and Korea, and has been on the advisory board of the XPrize, The Economist’s World Ocean Summit, and UNEP’s S.E. Asia advisory team, SEA Circular.

As founder of the Plasticity Forum, first launched at the Rio+20 Earth Summit, he is in touch with many of the innovative solutions and technologies that are now being introduced to help solve plastic pollution on a global level.The Plasticity Forum has been held in 13 cities around the world, including in collaboration with the UN’s regional headquarters in Bangkok as part of their Sea of Solutions Week.