🌏 The Biodiversity Accelerator+ 2022 Cohort Company: archiReef
archiREEF makes it easy for corporates to build and restore dynamic coral reefs.
TL;DR - archiREEF makes it easy to build and restore dynamic, resilient, and locally appropriate marine ecosystems from reef to shore. For corporates and governments, that means more ways to engage meaningfully with clients and staff who want to make a difference. Check out their algorithm-powered 3D printed clay “reef tiles” here!
Hong Kong - with one of the busiest ports in Asia, it’s unlikely that a thriving coral reef is the first thing you think of when it comes to the bustling city. But did you know that Hong Kong, with its long coastline, is known to house as many as 90 species of hard corals? That’s one tenth of the total number of reef-building corals in the world!
Like many reefs across the world, however, numerous environmental threats mean that coral numbers in Hong Kong are in steep decline. For context, 50% of global coral reef cover has already been lost since the 1950s.
To make matters worse, coral reefs are one of the most notoriously difficult ecosystem types to recover successfully over a long period of time. Returns on both effort and investment are chronically low, as people pour hours of work and thousands of dollars into supporting coral nurseries and constant repropagation projects, only to have those same repropagated corals thwarted by some environmental stressor, like heavy sedimentation, or pollution.
All too familiar with the problem is the founding team at archiREEF, 🤿Vriko Yu, CEO,🔬Dr. David Baker, Chief Scientist, and 🔨 Deniz Tekerek, COO and serial entrepreneur, who have made waves in the conservation of corals.
⚙️ How it works: Tiles that meet the challenges of reef restoration
👉🏼 The archiREEF team works with their clients to identify sites with the highest viability for reef restoration, and collect local data about that site’s specific conditions, such as its historical ecology of the site, water quality tests, and in-person dives.
👉🏼 They then plug the site data into their algorithm, which mathematically optimizes the tile design to maximize coral growth, while also using biomimicry of local coral species
👉🏼 Based on the algorithm output, the tiles are 3D-printed using biodegradable clay, and are “planted” at the site by divers.
By providing a more stable 3D base, archiREEF’s tiles allow the young coral “polyps” already in the water to attach to a permanent home easily and safely. This is vital for coral recruitment, which is key to reef recovery and resilience.
Another benefits to using archiREEF’s tiles for reef restoration? By lifting the corals off the seafloor, they provide a better substrate for coral fragments to grow and thrive.
With their solution, the team at archiREEF have sped up growth rates up to 4x as compared to with traditional methods, with extremely high survival rates of 98%.
Who’s it for: The business of building reefs
If you’re a corporate, or relevant government agency, archiREEF can help you site and install a reef recovery project, maintain it, and ultimately measure and communicate the impact of your work. They’ll make sure you’re not just repeating coral propagation efforts year-to-year to replace dying corals from the last cycle, but that your investment into reef restoration creates lasting and self-sustaining impacts.
Besides the obvious ecological benefits, corporates and governments should consider engaging archiREEF because healthy reefs provide important ecosystem services that are integral to their mandates, such as recreation and eco-tourism/staff-engagement opportunities, or as a flood protection strategy (to name just a few).
Despite archiREEF’s early beginnings, it already counts 4 corporates, across Hong Kong and Abu Dhabi and 1 government entity in its client portfolio, including property developer Sino Group (owners of the Fullerton Ocean Park Hotel). The team is also backed by ADQ, one of the sovereign wealth funds of Abu Dhabi and have set up production facilities in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), with pilot tests underway and ambitions to create a coral highway regionally.
archiREEF is working on a vital marine habitat that is at extremely high risk of being lost at scale. While others in the space more often focus on nurseries and re-establishment efforts, archiREEF is solving a key challenge of reef restoration efforts - coral survivorship.
We’re big fans of not just of archiREEF’s commitment to impact, but also, of their professionalism as a business and ability to match their environmental goals to their clients’ commercial needs.
We’re excited to be working with them through the Biodiversity Accelerator+ as they journey towards their goal of expanding to 10 large-scale restoration sites across the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans, and look forward to seeing them progress over the next few months!
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Want to learn more? Check out the archireef website, and Linkedin pages for more updates! Also be sure to read their feature on CNN, and on South China Morning Post.