Representatives from the different stages of a superyacht’s lifecycle were present to discuss what the industry can do to achieve net zero by 2050.

Vienna Eleuteri, initiator of Water Revolution Foundation, kicked off the session by quoting COP29 and UN Secretary-General General Guterres’ opening speech: “Ocean support is not charity, it is an investment. Climate action is not optional, it is imperative!”.

She also introduced the idea of the ‘3R’ model of achieving net zero, which comprises:

Reduce – Minimising negative impacts across all stages of the life cycle. Typically this will be increasing the efficiency of on-board systems, as well as using less emitting power methods.

Remove – Adopting bio-based alternatives from build materials to biofuels.

Restore – Actively restoring ecosystems to achieve net-zero outcomes, such as investing in the natural environment.

The below graph demonstrates how these actions across all stages of the industry could come together to achieve net zero by 2050.

It shows the importance of the positive impacts that need to be encouraged, which was particularly highlighted by Eleteuri, because investing in the natural environment can help build up the amount of blue carbon in many forms throughout coastal and marine environments – whether that’s seagrass, mangrove forests or fauna such as whales. Not only will this assist in fighting climate change and biodiversity loss, but also it can be seen as an investment in what attracts clients most to superyachting.

Eleuteri referred to a study by the International University of Monaco that investigated why yacht owners invest in an asset, with the study finding that the most common reason was the owner having a passion for the ocean. So maintaining the ocean as a beautiful place to continue to attract owners to spend time around it is a priority. This attitude is already being seen in the Red Sea, as Eleuteri detailed, where there is immense biodiversity in the form of coral reefs and other beautiful marine ecosystems. She told of the “environmental protection mechanism at the very core of the new coastal and marine-based tourism industry being built from scratch”.

However, as the graph shows, to successfully carry out this roadmap to net zero by 2050, all the different stakeholders need to be involved throughout the full lifecycle of a superyacht, hence the representation from design, build, refit and operation on the panel to discuss how the industry can achieve net zero. This is because every stage will be able to make different changes due to what they have total control over and the potential to influence.

“80 per cent of the impact of any project, not just a yacht, but a house or a factory or whatever, is all decided at design stage already.”

For example, at the beginning of a project, the design phase can determine a significant amount of impact the build will have. Aino Grapin of Winch Design cited the statistic that “80 per cent of the impact of any project, not just a yacht, but a house or a factory or whatever, is all decided at design stage already.”

Therefore, a lot of what designers will focus on will be the ‘Reduce’ part of the model, as it’s here that emissions can be avoided if smart choices are made. This is why there is the Sustainable Yacht Design Task Force, one of the elements of Water Revolution Foundation, where designers come together to share their challenges as well as their efforts and solutions within the industry. This taskforce has created a designer’s protocol detailing different topics and areas of improvement that can be made with new-build designs to be used at discussions in the planning phase.

This protocol and other sharing of best practices across the industry is crucial, as a key aspect to achieving this roadmap is for the industry to act more consciously and smarter. There are a number of savings to be made from these types of changes to design, build and operation caused by typical inefficiencies and waste somewhat inherent to the luxurious nature of superyachts and the demands of their owners and operators. One example discussed on the panel was a 70 per cent wood-wastage rate due to a specified look as decided during the design phase. This is an instance of where designers can influence owners towards less impactful options available – in the timber wastage case, what the different finishes with lower wastage look like.

This highlights how a lot of impact reduction will come from discussions with owners and operators to better understand how they can still have almost all they would want from their yacht, but with certain choices that can make significant reductions. As Anders Kurtén, CEO of Fraser Yachts, said of owners, “You have to teach them and help them make their choices”. Kurtén gave the example of explaining to owners, as he put it, “that you aren’t going to operate at that top speed due to the maximum comfort level”, further explaining that otherwise they wouldn’t reduce this top speed, although a reduction can result in 25 per cent lower installed power and hence lowering the emissions that a yacht will emit through its lifespan.

This change of expectations to make smarter and greener vessels isn’t just limited to these early phases. Ferdinando Pilli, General Manager of Lusben, gave a different example that occurs during refit where clients and crew are taught to avoid cleaning the boat every day while using the yacht to collect rainwater to be used. But they need to be shown what is possible to improve outside of the business-as-usual case. This is also where the updated Crew Guidelines from Water Revolution Foundation can help by education about better practices on board.

Martin Redmayne, Chairman of The Superyacht Group, cited a different instance of smarter design and operation of a superyacht, recollecting how Black Pearl has three modes for HVAC: guest on, crew on and no one on board, otherwise known as dormant mode. He explained this could be developed with the use of sensors to detect when rooms are occupied and require air conditioning.

YETI can help identify areas and methods to improve impact, whether that’s immediate changes such as operational modifications to reduce energy consumption or those to be made at refit.

Another example of what can be done in the initial phases of a superyacht’s lifespan is designing and building in preparation for the inevitable refit. Roderick De Vries, Technical Director of De Vries Group, mentioned working with designers and clients to reduce waste in interior design and suggesting different materials in line with the ‘Remove’ aspect of the 3R model. 

Smarter and greener changes in superyacht construction like this have already occurred in the industry. Redmayne noted how panels used to be attached with glue, meaning, during refit, “You’re having to almost deconstruct everything in quite an aggressive way”, to which Pilli replied that nowadays they are attached using fast mounts, making them easier to remove and be replaced. Similarly, Pilli mentioned how this is similar to installing a diesel-electric system and other systems which allows the vessel to be more flexible in the future: “It’s easy to swap the generator and multi-fuel so you can put fuels in it”.

As well as these actions to improve on-board impact, the source of power for yachts can also have a significant effect, with Kurtén echoing others in the support to change to hydrogenated vegetable oil (HVO) to significantly reduce emissions. He went further, saying that as many yachts a spend significant amount of time in marinas, more should be done to campaign for marinas to be able to provide shore power.

While of these things can be done to improve impact, Grapin spoke of the need for experimentation and measurement, to be able to know the impact of different choices, giving examples of some of this pioneering work that is occurring across the industry, mainly Feadship’s hydrogen yacht, Project 821, San Lorenzo’s fuel-cell yacht, 50 Steel Almax, and the ambitious Vitters’ build Project Zero.

With all of these on the precipice of being fully operating vessels in the next few years, it could bring a new wave of better, less impactful vessels across the industry. However, this reliance on such solutions being fully effective and not just a diversion from the status quo only seems like an improvement, but is genuinely more effective at the ‘Reduce’ and ‘Remove’ elements of the progression efforts of this roadmap. This is particularly where yards have assisted with this roadmap through supporting projects that may otherwise seem risky but could provide great potential for the future of the industry.

Another form of measurement that should be conducted to improve the impact of the current fleet is the use of the YETI assessment on existing vessels. Kurtén announced that Fraser Yachts has partnered with Water Revolution Foundation to be able to offer the evaluation to all yachts in their management programme. YETI can help identify areas and methods to improve impact, whether that’s immediate changes such as operational modifications to reduce energy consumption or those to be made at refit.

Many governments and institutions are implementing policies to reward those with decarbonisation and other improved solutions on board, either fiscally with reduced penalties, or through being able to access low or no-emission zones

On a broader level, Kurtén pressed for a cultural change alongside educating owners to make better choices and to change the more traditional goalposts that lead to the harmful impacts of the industry. But, as was highlighted on the panel, the industry needs to come together and collaborate to achieve this and create a new normal for the industry. Earlier in the session, Grapin pointed out that while there is a new generation entering the market, and there are clients who do care about their impact and the ocean, “For every client of Winch that does care, there are many more who don’t seem to care still”. This is why she called for protocols and industry commitment to create “a minimum standard as an industry of what we would like to do”.

All this will mean that, as Grapin put it, clients “can enjoy guilt-free yachting, futureproof yachting, and that their investments retain their value”. The industry coming together to create these standards would contribute to an actual and effective roadmap to 2050, which, she pointed out, doesn’t currently exist within the industry. Redmayne reinforced this approach: “We have to set goals to make sure that everyone in our industry is pushing the client to think about being cleaner because we should be imposing upon them the simple things we can fix.”

While of course there is the pressing need to combat climate change through these future actions within the industry, there are clients who may be “agnostic”, as Grapin called it, towards these issues. However, there are other reasons to achieve this roadmap. Eleuteri said many governments and institutions are implementing policies to reward those with decarbonisation and other improved solutions on board, either fiscally with reduced penalties, or through being able to access low or no-emission zones, such as around Norwegian islands and fjords. Eleuteri goes on to discuss the other side of this in terms of the pressure being felt from political and institutional bodies who “do not have any idea about this industry” and fears needing to “embrace regulations that are not based on real knowledge coming from the industry”.

This panel demonstrated that a lot can be done both immediately and through considerate future planning to improve the overall impact of the fleet in the next 25 years. As the future holds more difficulties for those wanting to carry on as we have done for the past 25 years, we need to make the yachts being built along with the existing fleet to become more resilient to this changing regulatory landscape, even beyond what this younger generation may begin to demand of the industry.

Redmayne closed with a call for “a dynamic change the way we do things because we can’t keep doing what we’re doing because it doesn’t make sense for the future.”

Profile links

Fraser Yachts

Winch Design

Water Revolution Foundation

Lusben

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