ENERGY: Sustainability comes at a price

For several years at METSTRADE, we have been asking our Sustainability Panels the question: ‘‘How green is green in the leisure marine industry?” The topics we have covered have included disassembly, life cycle assessment, material selection for better recyclability at end-of-life, and the development of clean energy storage and propulsion solutions.  For the 2021 sustainable panel at METSTRADE, we considered the intensifying global pressures on achieving net-zero emissions by 2050. For instance, the climate change targets set out by the UN Sustainability Development Goals, and the EU Green Deal. With this in mind, we decided to narrow the focus, by homing-in on the latest innovations aimed at achieving these climate change targets.

The circular economy’s June jamboree in Finland, attended by around 1,500 experts and policymakers, showed just how much momentum the concept has gained in recent years.  Little wonder. The circular economy model – which aims to use closed-loop production to keep resources in play for as long as possible – is presented as a pragmatic, win-win solution; an almost magical fix for our environmental woes.