Undercurrent exists to provide the support, practical tools & community to ensure all ocean advocates reach their full potential, whilst helping them stay stoked and deeply connected to nature.

Here’s what we know to be true - A burned-out ocean advocate can’t achieve the impact they are striving for. And an ocean advocate without strategy won’t create the impact they are dreaming of. The two core themes of our work are strategy and stoke. That translates into building capability and building capacity. One without the other is useless.

We know there’s no shortage of smart, passionate & committed individuals who are dedicated to protecting our ocean. But so often these ocean advocates aren't achieving the impact they want to have because they're lacking access to the specific skillsets that will enable them to reach their potential. They’re often working with limited resources and limited capacity whilst trying to build sustainable and impactful projects.

The program has two flows running simultaneously -

Strategy - Build your impact strategy as we go / Increase your capability with tried and tested tools, methodologies and frameworks.

Stoke- Create a practice to ensure you and your team stay stoked / Increase capacity through connection to nature, to self, and to others.

Your nine-week program kicks off with an onboarding session to connect with your cohort and prep for the work ahead. Then you’ll dive into six modules, with two weeks of implementation to wrap up the work together and ensure you walk away with a complete impact strategy & stoke practice.

You need to be working on a specific ocean/climate-focused project - You’ll be applying everything you learn directly to the project you’re working on.

You must be committed to doing the work - You’ll need to allocate about four hours a week to Undercurrent. Don’t panic, that isn’t four hours of live sessions or screen time - it’s about 25% learning time (listening or watching), 25% connecting (office hours with the community) and 50% deep work (solo assignments).

You’re excited to connect with your cohort and build community - Each week you’ll be asked to review a member of your cohort’s work. It’s an awesome opportunity to learn about each other’s projects, share ideas and support each other.

next cohort - 23 June to 22 Aug 2025

 
 

For more information regarding our sliding fee scale, payment plans and scholarships click here.

  • Learn your way - Two sessions delivered weekly (you can watch or listen in your own time)

  • Go analogue - Audio learning & printable workbook so you can opt outside

  • Cohort as community - Get to know your cohort with peer-to-peer learning

  • Weekly office hours - Option to join us for live sessions to ask questions, get feedback on your work and learn from your cohort

  • Special guests - Learn from six incredible ocean leaders as they share their stories and wisdom with the cohort, as well as provide case studies of best practice and access to relevant networks and resources

  • Online learning hub - Everything in one place. Share ideas, connect, learn together

  • Stoke sessions - Breathwork, nature connection practices and nervous system regulation

  • 1:1 coaching - If you’d like additional support, we offer an option to book three 1:1 45-minute calls with us at anytime during your program (limited spaces apply)

Over the last few years, we’ve been fortunate enough to work on some really important causes with incredible people. On every project we’ve found ourselves pulling from our toolkit, seeking out new ways of thinking & working and co-designing strategy & storytelling solutions that help amplify the hard work being done on the ground.

Protect Blue is an ocean-focused agency built on four pillars: Strategy, Storytelling, Education & Expeditions. As an agency, we work predominantly with non-profits & ocean orgs. But we also work directly with ocean advocates & activists through our own programs, residencies & workshops.

The very first iteration of our organisation, Protect Blue, was an event for ocean advocates in 2017. A gathering in Italy that brought together a phenomenal collective of changemakers. We switched up the ‘normal’ format for a conference and invited all our participants on a series of micro-adventures. Every workshop was delivered outside and connected to nature. It just made sense to us. We’re more creative, more energised and more present when we’re outdoors.

The event was a big success - but we realised there was another tweak to make. We’d brought together a group of experts to facilitate workshops on climate, plastic pollution, blue carbon and other key sustainability issues that our community was already immersed in. They cared deeply but didn’t need to go to yet another conference to discuss them.

So we did what any good design thinker does - and we asked our community what they needed - what the biggest challenges were that they were facing, what skills they felt like they needed and what success looked like in regards to their impact. Turns out the answers across the whole community were loud and clear.

Everyone needed practical tools to help create more meaningful impact in their work and in their communities. They wanted to know how best to build strategy, to tell more engaging stories and to measure their impact.

And really - that’s how Wavemakers & Undercurrent came about. We’ve blended our commercial skillsets with our lean approach to environmental & social impact. We’ve gathered all the tools that have helped us, and so many of our clients, friends & collab partners and built a blueprint for meaningful impact.