Founder, Chairman And Ceo
CurrentThe fjord clean-up was really born 7 years ago when I (Tomas Hansson) started picking rubbish while guiding kayak trips down Akerselva (a river that runs through central Oslo) through my paddling company: Mad Goats. From here, I started giving away free trips to people wanting to pick up one bag of rubbish on their way down. This led to me organizing completely voluntary kayak cleaning trips down Akerselva, with around 10 - 20 people in each event. We picked up a lot of trash, but there was always more. All of this was done voluntarily, with no funding from other places, only from Mad Goats. Mad Goats would sacrifice commercial customers, to instead clean up the river - this is a display of a business taking real responsibility, and not greenwashing. After a few years, we started a new business in Aker Brygge: Oslo Fjord Spa. After getting to know the area, we realized this area was very dirty and the marina and harbor were full of marine rubbish. So we started a regular weekly clean-up where people could sign up and clean the area, and in return get a free sauna with us afterward. These events were very popular and we soon realized that we as small businesses could not afford to support the growth that the initiative needed for it to reach its full potential. This is when the Fjord CleanUP was officially born in the form of a registered non-profit organization. We needed to create an official body within in its own right and not just be a sub-entity of a commercial business. So the organization was founded, we created a vision, development plans, and committed to clean the Inner Oslo Fjord all year round, snow, rain, or sun! We are a small organization, and it is unfortunate that a non-profit is one of Oslo’s brightest hopes when it comes to fixing the sorry state the fjord is in, especially when there are government departments and companies with billions of krona behind them, but this is the world we live in so we will do whatever it takes to achieve our goals!
