Green and greener?
Manuel Fluck moves on from wind-assisted ships to look at the global realities, or otherwise, of some of the numerous other green initiatives now competing for those smiley headlines…
Green is in fashion Utilities offer green electricity, there are green phones, pants, shoes and beauty products; there is even green hydrogen and green data storage. Turning to sailing, the Imoca class rule now requires the boats to have at least one green sail onboard, hulls are now greener and races too. All around us things are turning green,
so green that even green-washing became a mainstream practice. But what’s the reality of this green trend, what can we sensibly do better, what makes sense… and what merely sounds exciting but doesn’t really do any good for the planet?
44 SEAHORSE Let me share my engineer’s perspective.
For starters let’s get one thing straight: I’m not a big fan of the term ‘green’ sails, boats, events… or, even worse, hydrogen. Green is a colour and none of the above are actually green. While this inaccuracy bothers the engi-
neer, writing each time ‘with reduced neg- ative impact on the environment, particu- larly with less global warming potential through reduced greenhouse gas emissions during its production and/or for its life cycle’ is on the one hand clumsy, and on the other not accurate either. Different people mean different things
when they say ‘green’. Something related to eco-friendly, sustainable, less pollut- ing… I don’t want to get into the semantics and thus, for the sake of simplicity, I too will use the term ‘green’! It also makes this text much easier to read. But I will put ‘green’ into quotation marks, as a place- holder, and assume the reader will respon- sibly understand what ‘green’ stands
for: any one of the common definitions, basically saying ‘the more environmentally friendly version of something’. Making things ‘greener’ became a very
hot topic over the past few years and received significant attention in the sailing industry too. And rightfully so. The effects of the climate crisis are becoming more and more evident every day, and I cannot remember a day of sailing without obvious signs of ocean pollution. It is good that our industry, yacht builders, sail and parts suppliers and event organisers become aware of their responsibilities and the potential impact they can have as change leaders. It is good that they all take action, however small.
The easy answer Hence there is lots of talk about ‘green’ sails, flax hulls, biodegradable or recycled materials… Each of these is a good idea and we certainly should continue the R&D to advance these new products. But just
LUNA ROSSA PRADA PIRELLI TEAM
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