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Our Ocean Foundation's Executive Manager Nominated for the Gullklypa Award
Ellen Sandvik Mikkelsen is a finalist for the national environmental award Gullklypa 2024. As the executive director of Our Ocean Foundation, she has engaged thousands in the fight against littering, and her work is now finally receiving national recognition.
Ellen (born in Oslo, with ties to Fredrikstad and Northern Norway) is one of five finalists for the national environmental award Gullklypa 2024, awarded by Hold Norge Rent. Ellen is a social entrepreneur and the Executive Director of Vårt Hav.
Gullklypa will be awarded on 19 June by Hold Norge Rent, a nonprofit organization working for a litter-free Norway through volunteer engagement, knowledge sharing, and holding polluters accountable. The organization is behind “Strandryddeuka,” Norway’s largest collective clean-up campaign.
“I have worked as a volunteer my whole life. For me, this commitment started many years ago, and the journey from volunteer to initiator and leader of major clean-up projects felt natural,” says Ellen.
She has worked with marine litter for nearly ten years and has been part of national efforts and system development from the very beginning. For her, the work is about more than litter removal - it is about creating solutions that are inclusive and long-lasting.
Today, she coordinates thousands of volunteers, and over the past fifteen years she has mobilized several thousand people to take action for sustainability, the environment, and the fight against marine litter. She has also helped establish summer jobs for youth, both through Miljøvegviser and through low-threshold initiatives where everyone can participate.
For her, it is not only about beach clean-ups — it is about inclusion and diversity with a shared goal: taking care of the ocean and of each other, so that no one is left behind.
Ellen is a well-known voice in the local communities of Finnmark, Troms, and Nordland. She now hopes that the nomination can create even more awareness around the marine environment and inclusion:
"I greatly appreciate being able to collaborate on how we tell the story. The most important thing is not that I receive attention, but that what I work for - community, participation, and sustainability - gets the place it deserves."
At the same time, she does not hide that the nomination also means a lot to her personally:
"Being nominated for Gullklypa means an enormous amount. It shows that long-term work, system-building, and community also have value," she says.
Ellen hopes the nomination can inspire more people to see the value of inclusion in environmental work. She has spent many years making it possible for children, schools, and local communities to get involved and make a difference. That the efforts from Northern Norway - a region with 40 percent of Norway’s coastline - are now being highlighted nationally makes her both proud, grateful, and moved.