4Ocean could sell bracelets and other products to fund cleanup activities as a non-profit. Yet this is a misrepresentation of what a non-profit is or can do. So why is 4Ocean for-profit? According to 4Ocean Founder Alex Schulze: “When you look at a non-profit, or charity, we really didn’t want to go that route and ask with our hand out, rather create a product and a business solution so this can be around long after we are gone.”. We’ve never stated or implied in any way that we’re a charity.” Yet, in customer reviews where people are referring to their “donation”, 4Ocean actively engages but almost never refutes that the purchase is not a donation. In response to Jiri, 4Ocean wrote: “We make no allusion to the fact that we’re a privately held company. A customer called Jiri, from the Czech Republic, echoed my observation: “This company try (sic) to look like a charity or organisation, it is not written anywhere but most of the people think they are charity or organisation because they act like that.” “Donated for 2 bracelets”, reads another. (…) 4Ocean mislead people into thinking they are charitable but they are a profitable business that tries very hard to look like a charity”, reads a review on. I also found out that they are NOT a charity. “I bought one of their bracelets and it fell apart in weeks. “I thought I was supporting a global nonprofit agency”, one disappointed customer wrote on BBB.org.
Reading through online reviews, it turned out I wasn’t the only one who was under the impression that 4ocean was a non-profit. The ads and website invite you to “join the movement”, while a recent 4Ocean blog said they want to “educate viewers about the ocean plastic crisis and empower them to become part of the solution”. While 4Ocean doesn’t explicitly state it’s a non-profit, the marketing language used makes it feel as if it is (at least it did for me). It’s the divergence between this reality and people’s expectations where things start to get iffy. This in itself is not bad, but it does mean thatġ) 4Ocean is not obliged to spend the money it receives to address the plastic problemĢ) As a privately-owned corporation, 4Ocean is not obliged to share any financial information with the public So I turned to the web, and after losing myself for hours in reading articles, reviews and interviews, it led me to draw the following conclusion with a fair degree of confidence:ĤOcean is an e-commerce corporation window dressed as a social cause, which uses aggressive marketing and fabricated credibility to dupe millions of people into thinking they are saving the oceans, while in fact they likely have little positive, and possibly even a negative effect on the oceans.Ĭontrary to popular belief, 4Ocean is not a non-profit charity, but a for-profit corporation. Does my purchase truly help to clean the ocean? If so, how much of my money is going to cleanups? How would I know for sure?
And while my heart guided me to their check-out page, my brain started to push back with questions. A persuasive video explaining how “one bracelet can save the ocean” drew me to their website. Therefore, I was excited to learn more about the possibility to contribute to the cause of cleaning it up. Īs an avid surfer and scuba-diver, I love the ocean and am appalled by the millions of tons of plastic trash that pollutes the world’s oceans. There was no escaping to the ads of 4Ocean, a Florida-based group that touts itself as a “movement to end the ocean plastic crisis”. I’d see them whenever I opened a YouTube video. I’d see them on my social media timelines.