Yacht Assessment Tool
Our Yacht Assessment Tool enables more informed choices to
be made when designing, building and refitting a yacht
A decision support system
Our state-of-the-art Yacht Assessment Tool revolutionises the design, build and refit processes by empowering decision-makers with the information needed to make sustainable choices.
The Yacht Assessment Tool was long known under its project name Yachting 4.0, when it was under development by Water Revolution Foundation’s initiator and vice-chair, Dr Vienna Eleuteri, together with the University of Bologna. It is a software tool based on ‘computational sustainability’, an interdisciplinary field that combines techniques from computer science, information science, operations research, applied mathematics, and statistics for balancing environmental, economic, and societal needs for sustainable development. This is the latest approach in sustainability science.
November 2019
If we can design, build and refit superyachts in a far more sustainable manner, we are not only tackling the problem at its source, we can embrace and accelerate the time-to-market of new sustainable solutions.”
Robert van Tol, executive director
Aim of the tool
- To facilitate the superyacht industry with a scientifically-developed assessment tool tailored to the industry.
- To enable the industry to assess a complete superyacht or a sub-part of it.
- To perform a full life cycle assessment of the object.
- To educate the user on the environmental impact of the assessed object.
- To identify where the majority of the impact is coming from.
- To make more informed choices during future projects.
- To define the next steps for continuous product improvements.
- To set internal targets for improvements.
- To develop a supply chain programme.
- To take concrete and real action in reducing the environmental footprint.
- To minimise the superyacht industry’s environmental impact.
- To future-proof the superyacht industry and show its strategic position.
- To lead the way for other maritime sectors.
How it works
Until now, it was not possible to measure the environmental impact of a superyacht as there was no specific tool to perform this assessment. Not only does our Yacht Assessment Tool take into consideration the unique type of vessel that superyachts are, it carries out a full life cycle assessment (standardised into ISO 14040/44) and calculates the environmental impact using the ten most important environmental indicators: global warming, ozone layer depletion, photochemical oxidation, eutrophication, acidification, NOx, SOx, PM10, water scarcity footprint, and ecopoint. After all, if we really want to reduce our environmental footprint, we need to reduce all of these parameters.
Life cycle assessment
When assessing environmental impact, it’s crucial to take into account a yacht’s entire life cycle, at all times. Why? Because only optimising for the operational phase and ignoring all other phases of its life cycle can result in a poor cost-benefit ratio, higher environmental footprint and ultimately be condemned as greenwashing. That’s why our tool takes all phases into account.
Assessing your product
We have already started working on case studies with our partners who made it possible to develop the tool and deliver it so quickly. In addition, we enthusiastically invite other superyacht industry companies to get in touch to work on their case study together. Through working together, we can make real improvements and significantly reduce the environmental footprint of your product and, step by step, the industry as a whole.
Here’s how it works:
- Depending on what object your company would like Water Revolution Foundation to assess, a model inside the tool will be developed in order to measure exactly that.
- Subsequently, you will be asked to provide the data as requested in a data collection sheet.
- This data will be uploaded in the tool for performing the assessment.
- The outcomes will be given and a report can be downloaded.
- We will discuss the results with you and identify steps for improvement.
- You can sign up for training in order to work with the tool and model.
- You will receive login details for a private area inside the tool to work with the model, testing alternative choices to identify ways to reduce the environmental impact of your product.
Note that all data and intellectual property is protected at all times, and results will not be shared with anyone else. With our Yacht Assessment Tool, you can properly assess alternatives to ensure the final product has a lower impact, avoiding ineffective changes and greenwashing.
How to get started
As Water Revolution Foundation serves the higher goal of making the entire superyacht industry more sustainable, we do not seek a return on investment for the development costs for the Yacht Assessment Tool. However, costs may apply to cover the labour costs needed to develop the model and perform the analysis, depending on the level required.
Instead of a transactional relationship, we encourage interested parties to consider supporting the foundation’s mission by becoming partner of the foundation.
