Business For Good Podcast

The Business Of Saving Coral Reefs With Sam Teicher

by Paul Shapiro 

Dec 1, 2018 | Episode 11 

More About Sam Teicher

For decades conservation charities have been trying to save the oceans, but sadly, the tide hasn’t turned in their favor. In just the past 40 years, we’ve killed off half the world’s coral reefs, with 20% dying in the past three years alone.

What if entrepreneurs could harness the power of business to actually make it profitable to quickly rebuild coral reefs?

That’s the bet Coral Vita is making. The Bahamas-based start-up is pioneering on-land coral farming techniques that rapidly grow corals at 50 times the pace they’d normally grow, then transplanting them onto imperiled reefs.

Meet the company’s cofounder and chief reef officer, Sam Teicher, and learn not just what we’re doing that’s killing coral reefs, but how for-profit coral farming could just bring them back.

Resources recommended by Sam

Halcyon House was Coral Vita’s incubator

JMK Innovation Prize awarded Coral Vita

Echoing Green where Sam is a fellow


Leadership Lessons of Lincoln is the book Sam recommends in this interview