Hub of Verified Solutions

Verified by independent third parties

The only directory of environmental solutions built specifically for the yachting industry, every listing independently verified.

Unlike a standard product catalogue, every solution listed here has earned its place through independent verification, because in an industry built on verified performance, environmental claims should be no different.

Note: Tier 4 is the highest level of rigour. The numbering reflects the depth of assessment, not ranking. Every listed solution has submitted to independent scrutiny; the goal is always to climb.

Tier 4Lightweight Marble 10+5Tier 4Reef-Safe Sunscreen SPF50Tier 4Hull VaneTier 4Explore E8 & E9Tier 4Hempaguard X7Tier 4Giraglia 633 Extra & Magellan 630 ExtraTier 4RecondOilTier 4Awlgrip HDTTier 4FendaskinTier 4Marine Inverter Air Conditioning with Direct Refrigerant ExpansionTier 4Permanent Washable Air FiltersTier 4Via Maris Njørdal
Insights
How Efficiency Protects Long-Term Yacht Value

Efficiency is not simply an operational consideration. For yacht owners, the decisions made around refit,…

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Your product is someone else’s Scope 3 problem

The EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) is forcing the companies that buy from you…

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Introducing the latest verified solution to the Hub – NC Marmi

NC Marmi’s Lightweight Marble 10+5 has joined the Hub of Verified Solutions, with the verification…

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Your Product Is Sustainable. Can You Prove It?

Sustainability is no longer a differentiator in the superyacht industry. It is an expectation. Owners,…

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Why Environmental Sustainability Defines Future Yacht Value

Sustainability is no longer a reputational add-on for the superyacht sector. It is now the…

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Introducing the latest verified solution to the Hub

We are pleased to announce the addition of AETHIC’s Reef-Safe Sunscreen SPF50 to our Hub of Verified Solutions. This marks a pivotal expansion for the Hub, as it represents the first sunscreen and the first consumer product to successfully undergo a rigorous third-party verification process.

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The EU’s Advanced Biofuels Capacity Blueprint: What the Data Says – and Why HVO Is Both the Answer and the Problem

Can Europe actually build the industrial ecosystem needed to meet its own renewable fuel targets? That is the question at the heart of a substantial new European Commission study, executed by a consortium of EXERGIA, Politecnico di Torino (POLITO), and BEST (Bioenergy and Sustainable Technologies).

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The Omnibus Deal Is Done. What Now for Sustainability Reporting?

Water Revolution Foundation spent last week at the Superyacht Forum and Metstrade for a full programme of meetings, presentations and collaborative sessions.

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Frequently asked questions

What is Life Cycle Assessment?

A Life Cycle Assessment measures the environmental impact of a product across its whole life. Where the materials came from, how it was made, how it got to the customer, what happens while it is in use, and what happens when it is thrown away.

You count what goes in at every stage: energy, water, materials. You count what comes out: emissions to air, water and soil. Then you convert that into impact figures.

The method is set out in two international standards, ISO 14040 and ISO 14044. Following them is what makes your result something a customer can trust rather than something they have to take your word for.

Why would I want an LCA?

Four reasons, in the order you are likely to meet them.

A customer asked. Shipyards and large buyers are being asked for supply chain data by their own reporting obligations, so they pass the question down. If you cannot answer, they go to a supplier who can.

Regulation. The EU’s CSRD pulls supply chain emissions into corporate reporting. The Green Claims Directive means environmental claims have to be substantiated with evidence. Public and semi-public tenders increasingly ask for environmental data as a condition of entry.

You want to improve the product and need to know where to start. This is the one that pays for itself. Guessing where your impact sits is unreliable. Measuring it is not.

You want to say something about your product without being challenged on it. “More sustainable” invites a follow-up question. A verified figure does not.

What are the stages of a products' life?

  1. Raw material extraction. Mining, drilling, farming, forestry. Everything your materials are made from.
  2. Manufacturing. Turning those materials into your product. Energy, water, process emissions, waste.
  3. Transport. Between every stage, not just the final delivery. Materials in, product out.
  4. Use. What happens over the product’s service life. Fuel, maintenance, replacement parts, coatings.
  5. End of life. Landfill, incineration, recycling, or reuse.

What are the four common boundaries?

You do not have to assess all five stages. What you include is called the system boundary, and there are four standard choices.

Cradle to gate covers stages 1 to 3, ending when the product leaves your factory. Faster and cheaper because you control most of the data. Good for understanding your own operations. Limited for anything involving a long-lived product.

Cradle to grave covers all five. This is the full picture. EN 15804+A2, the European standard for construction product EPDs, now requires it.

Cradle to cradle replaces disposal with recycling that feeds back into a new product. Used when you are making a circularity argument.

Gate to gate covers a single process step. Useful when several companies each assess their own stage and the results are combined later.

For most marine products the choice matters more than people expect. A hull coating assessed cradle to gate looks like a small tin of paint. Assessed cradle to grave, over fifteen years of biocide release and its effect on fuel consumption, it looks entirely different.

What gets measured?

Carbon is the headline, but a full LCA covers more.

The common impact categories are:

  • Global warming potential, measured in kg CO₂-equivalent
  • Acidification, which relates to acid rain
  • Eutrophication, nutrient runoff causing algal blooms and oxygen depletion in water
  • Ozone depletion
  • Photochemical ozone formation, or smog
  • Human toxicity and ecotoxicity
  • Water use
  • Resource depletion, for minerals and fossil fuels

What does 'equivalent' mean?

Several different gases cause climate change, and they are not equally strong. Rather than list them separately, they are converted to a common unit using their warming potential over 100 years. Using the current IPCC AR6 values:

  • 1 kg of CO₂ = 1 kg CO₂e
  • 1 kg of methane = roughly 30 kg CO₂e
  • 1 kg of nitrous oxide = roughly 273 kg CO₂e

(You will still see older figures of 25 and 298 in circulation. Those come from a 2007 assessment and are being phased out.)

The same logic applies to the other categories, each with its own reference substance.

Watch for the trade-off. Improving one category can worsen another. A bio-based material may cut climate impact while increasing land use and eutrophication. This is why measuring carbon alone can lead you to a change that is not actually an improvement.

What are the four phases of doing an LCA?

Phase 1: Goal and scope. Decide what you are assessing and why. This is where you define the functional unit, which is the exact quantity of product and its service life. For example: one square metre of deck coating, protecting the surface for ten years. Everything else is measured per that unit, so if this is wrong, everything downstream is wrong too.

Phase 2: Inventory. Data collection. Energy, materials, water, waste and emissions for every process in scope. This is the longest phase by a wide margin. Data from your own operations is called primary data. Database averages standing in for what you cannot measure are called secondary data. The more primary data you have, the stronger the result.

Phase 3: Impact assessment. Converting the inventory into impact figures per category. Software handles the calculation.

Phase 4: Interpretation. Working out what the numbers actually mean. Where is the impact concentrated? How much does the result depend on assumptions you had to make? What would you change first? ISO 14044 requires that limitations are stated here, not buried.

These phases are not strictly sequential. You will often reach phase 2, find that a data gap forces a change of scope, and go back to phase 1.

What will I be asked to provide?

If you commission an LCA, expect to supply:

  • Annual production volumes by product
  • A bill of materials, with quantities and supplier locations
  • Energy use for the site, ideally split by process
  • Water use
  • Waste quantities and how each stream is treated
  • Transport distances and modes for incoming materials
  • Any process emissions you already measure

Most of this exists already, in utility bills, purchase records and production logs. It is usually spread across three or four departments, which is the real obstacle rather than the data itself.

What does an LCA not do?

Worth knowing before you commission one.

It depends entirely on the quality of the data going in. A study built mostly on database averages gives you a generic answer that will not tell you much about your specific product.

It involves judgement. Where a process produces more than one output, someone has to decide how to split the environmental burden between them. Different defensible choices give different results, which is why the method has to be stated.

Comparisons only work when the studies match. Same functional unit, same boundary, same impact method, comparable data quality. Two EPDs for similar products often cannot be compared. Anyone offering you a single number with no scope attached is not giving you enough to judge it.

It excludes social impact. Labour conditions, community effects and human rights are outside a conventional LCA. Social LCA exists as a separate method and is far less mature.

It optimises what you assess. Improve one product and you may not notice a larger problem sitting in a product you never looked at.

None of this is a reason to avoid LCA. It is the reason results come with a methodology section.

Is there a brief overview of the standards?

Standard Covers
ISO 14040 / 14044 LCA principles, framework and requirements
ISO 14025 Environmental Product Declarations
ISO 14067 Product carbon footprint
ISO 14021 Self-declared environmental claims
EN 15804+A2 EPDs for construction products, widely used as a reference in marine
GHG Protocol Company-level emissions, Scopes 1, 2 and 3

 

One distinction that causes confusion: the GHG Protocol measures a company’s emissions. LCA measures a product’s impact, across more than carbon. They feed each other but they are not the same exercise.

Where do I begin?

You do not need a full ISO-compliant study on day one.

A reasonable first step is a screening assessment: rough figures, database data where you have nothing better, aimed at finding out roughly where your impact sits. It will not be publishable. It will tell you whether your problem is in materials, energy, transport or use, and that alone is usually enough to change what you do next.

Refine from there. Improve the data in the area that turned out to matter. Most suppliers who end up with a verified EPD got there in stages.

How does the Hub of Verified Solutions and LCA work together?

The Hub of Verified Solutions uses LCA-based data to compare and verify the environmental performance of products in the yachting sector.

You do not need a good result to take part. You need a measured one. A supplier who knows their footprint is high and can show exactly where it sits is in a stronger position than one who has never looked.

An LCA is not a test you pass or fail. It is a tool that tells you where your impact is, so you can decide what to do about it.

If you supply materials, components or systems to the marine industry and want to understand your product’s footprint, the Hub can help you start.

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