Founded at The Superyacht Forum 2018, the Water Revolution Foundation’s key mission is to neutralise the superyacht industry’s environmental footprint and protect the world’s oceans. Following the launch of its Yacht Assessment Tool last year, the foundation is now launching its Database of Sustainable Solutions – a tool that will increase the industry’s awareness of solutions that can help reduce a new build or existing yacht’s environmental footprint. 

As Robert van Tol, co-founder and executive director of Water Revolution Foundation, explains, the aim is for the database to become an online catalogue that cuts through the noise surrounding sustainability in the superyacht industry, a landscape of increasingly self-proclaimed sustainable solutions. “The goal of the platform is to ensure that the definition of sustainable in the superyacht industry is no longer up for debate,” he says. 

“Every solution listed on the platform will have been verified as sustainable, meaning it is an improvement on the status quo. It will be the central place for key decisionmakers within new build, refit and operations to find alternative solutions to conventional on-board systems, providing inspiration and guidance for buyers, and a well-deserved stage for suppliers of real sustainable solutions.” 

“It will be the central place for key decisionmakers within new build, refit and operations to find alternative solutions to conventional on-board systems, providing inspiration and guidance for buyers, and a well-deserved stage for suppliers of real sustainable solutions.”

In terms of the process that verifies whether a solution is sustainable or not, the Water Revolution Foundation will primarily use its Yacht Assessment Tool. “We will consider a solution to be sustainable if it is an improvement on six of the 10 leading environmental indicators used by our Yacht Assessment Tool,” adds van Tol. “If the solution that we assess for verification scores better than the status quo in six out of those 10 parameters, then we can consider it a sustainable solution.”

If a solution is verified, it will be published in the widely-promoted and publicly-available online database. Solutions that do not make it through the verification process will not be included, but will receive a feedback report, including advice on how to further improve its sustainability. The majority of solutions included in the database are expected to be physical on-board systems, however sustainable materials will be included as well as best practices, both on and off the yacht. 

Today’s launch marks the first phase of the Database of Sustainable Solutions: a call to action for suppliers to come forward with their solutions and work with the Water Revolution Foundation on the verification assessment. Once enough solutions have been generated to populate the database, the second phase will be the publishing of the database for the industry to access and use. The aim is for this to take place early 2021.

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Water Revolution Foundation

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