performance. If we can avoid shipping people and materials by air, big gains can be made with relatively little effort… and most of all without requiring any ground- breaking new technology.
Finding the bad guys
The numbers published by SailGP tell a similar story. Intuitively the ‘bad guys’ are often quickly identified as the seemingly obvious ones: the fuel-guzzling high-speed support boats and the notoriously pollut- ing helicopter. The LCA on SailGP’s oper- ations, however, reveals a very different big picture: the biggest part of the emis- sions related to their operations comes from spectator travel and accommodation. If we ignore whatever is hidden behind ‘supply chain’ (probably something they cannot directly influence themselves very much either) the next big ones are staff travel and freight again.
‘Greener’ sails
So what does this look like for a sail? After all, sails are the big-ticket item where we have the most freedom to choose a ‘green’ alternative.
When working on the definition of their ‘Green Sail’ rule, the Imoca class collabo- rated with the principal Imoca sailmakers and MarineShift360 to conduct an LCA of the sailmaking process. Here as well the mission was clearly based on Peter Drucker’s principle: measure the impacts, find the low-hanging fruits, prescribe a rule to tackle the hottest hotspots first, and
then continuously update it as the impact starts decreasing. And again the LCA results paint a clear picture: energy, waste and transport are the key impact drivers. Consequently the Imoca class is focusing their ‘Green Sail’ rule version 1.0 on exactly these areas: Energy: sail production, making cloth and laminate, is an energy-intensive process. It makes a significant difference if that energy comes from a renewable electricity source or an old coal plant. Waste: producing a sail consumes a lot of auxiliary materials (tape, backing paper, packaging, solvents…) and waste (notably cut-offs). Some report that for 1kg of sail on the boat 6kg of materials are used. Producing more efficiently, reducing packaging and cutting down on waste immediately reduces the sail’s carbon footprint without impacting performance. Transport: as with most of the products we consume, for a sail too the materials come from many different places. Fibres, yarns, cloth, glue, resins, battens… are usually produced by different companies in different locations with a great deal of transport in between. And again transport, and particularly air transport, has a big impact. Consolidating supply chains, sourcing materials locally and, most of all, avoiding air shipment makes the difference.
Unfortunately decisions are usually made at the last minute, orders are placed as late as possible, and we expect the product to arrive tomorrow, if not better
yesterday. This leaves the manufacturer in a squeeze and often air shipping is the only means to get goods to the boat in time for the regatta or cruise agenda.
But air shipping is the most harmful way of shipping! Does it need to be that way? Let’s stay with sails, for example: do we not know the racing or cruising schedule already months ahead? Can we not anticipate when we need the new set of sails ahead of time? If we order early we can allow time to ship by sea and thus significantly reduce the carbon footprint of the sails. No magic materials required here, just a bit of planning.
To summarise: it is important to research game-changing materials and processes. However, if we agree that it is time to reduce our environmental impact now, we should look at the low-hanging fruits of the overall (cradle to grave) processes we are engaging with and the overall impact of the goods we consume. Notably these are transport emissions from moving people and goods, and the sources of energy we use. All these are both substantial and relatively easy to change today, without the need of any groundbreakingly new technology. All this change needs is our own, personal (con- sumer, yacht owner, race organiser or visitor) attention to the low-hanging fruits. And a bit of forward thinking.
Thanks to Damian Foxall and Amy Munro at 11th Hour Racing for their assistance in preparing this article
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