Blue Boat Horizon Project – European Boating Industry

Making Life Cycle Assessment the building block to improve the environmental performance and transform the future of the boating industry.

The recreational boating industry is stepping up to the challenge of advancing sustainability. The industry believes that Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is the key to unlock improvements in environmental performance - helping businesses navigate toward a cleaner, responsible future based on a strong business case.

LCA is the analysis of the environmental footprint of any product from raw material, to manufacturing, the use phase and end-of-life treatment. It evaluates it from the perspective of several environmental indicators, such as GHG emissions, water usage, land usage and several others. The producer can then undertake changes, such as use of sustainable materials or using renewable energy on the manufacturing site, to improve environmental performance of the product. It therefore opens up innovation across the industry by allowing improvements across the lifecycle and environmental indicators.

To enable this vision with an industry-specific approach, 17+ leading European boat manufacturers and 9+ national industry associations joined forces in the Blue Boat Horizon (BBH) project – with the aim to create the first-ever standardised methodology to measure and reduce the environmental footprint of recreational boats under 24 meters. This groundbreaking initiative, built on thousands of hours of expertise from industry specialists, is designed to be both practical and scalable, ensuring it meets real-world needs while addressing upcoming environmental regulations and putting our industry ahead of the regulatory curve.

The project unfolds in two phases. First we are laying the foundation through a science-based, industry-specific LCA methodology that meets the strict EU requirements, with rigorous third-party review. The next phase will be to drive change – Implementing the methodology with a database and an easy-to-use calculation tool, making it accessible for widespread industry adoption.

The project has united the recreational boating industry in Europe around the approach to sustainability to move ahead of the curve. It opens up all pathways to improving environmental performance, from materials to propulsion and end-of-life.

Measures of success

• Participation and buy-in from major European boat builders and SMEs (making up 96% of industry)

• Involvement of 9+ associations, 17+ manufacturers and 8+ stakeholders

• Over 250 working days by technical experts contributed to the project 

• Alignment with priorities of European Commission and regular engagement

• Support from international partners for next steps

  
  

Next steps

EBI is excited to be continuing the project with its current and new partners for the global phase of the project in cooperation with partners NMMA (North America) and ICOMIA (EBI’s international sister association).

The aim continues to be bringing together a database and tool that players in the market from small businesses to larger yards can make us of and be their key tool to improve environmental performance based on a strong business case.

The project continues and remains a key element of EBI’s work continuing to develop the methodology and moving to the next phases of tool and database development.