It’s one thing to explore and adopt sustainability-oriented systems to lessen a yacht’s footprint. It’s quite another, however, to determine what a yacht’s environmental impact actually is, especially in relation to similar craft. The Yacht Environmental Transparency Index is the first tool that compares similar superyachts against each other in terms of their operational efficiency over their lifecycle.
The Yacht Environmental Transparency Index—YETI 1.0 for short—has been in development for the past two and a half years. It represents collaboration among superyacht builders, naval architects, and the scientific community via the Water Revolution Foundation. The non-profit organization helped spearhead the tool’s creation because industry stakeholders, and therefore owners, have lacked an objective way to judge current and future yachts’ ecological effects.
YETI 1.0 measures a yacht’s environmental impact based on its operational profile. The working group determined that this is the most impactful part of the lifecycle. In fact, the shipyards laid the groundwork with data from 130 superyachts. Combined with the yachts’ AIS details—nearly 300 years’ worth—the data revealed their actual annual behavior. Altogether, on average, the group determined superyachts are in port 60 percent of the year, at anchor 30 percent, and at sea 10 percent.
With this operational profile in mind, YETI 1.0 takes into account your yacht’s general parameters, along with her speed-to-power ratio, gensets, battery banks, and more. The index then converts her calculated emissions into EcoPoints. (An EcoPoint is a quantity of pollutant emitted per kilogram of analyzed fuel and the corresponding exhaust gases.) Ultimately, YETI 1.0 provides your yacht’s environmental impact score by dividing EcoPoints by her gross-tonnage category. Additionally, you receive details on how your yacht relates against others within that category, and recommendations for potential improvement.
Notably, Water Revolution Foundation says tonnage-specific analysis and advice is better than comparing all yachts equally. The tonnage categories follow regulatory definitions, specifically sub-500 GT, 500 to 3,000 GT, and more than 3,000 GT. Furthermore, your yacht’s environmental impact score considers anticipated fuel and shore-power consumption, along with their related emissions. Studies concluded prior to YETI 1.0’s release also have revealed the upstream impacts of fuels, engines, gensets, and shore power’s average footprint in popular marinas, the foundation says.
Interestingly, owners and their representatives, along with the noted industry stakeholders, aren’t the only ones seeking environmental-impact data. The Water Revolution Foundation says insurance providers, lenders, and marinas have inquired about YET 1.0 as well.
The organization has YETI 2.0 in the works, with an eye toward broadening it beyond operational efficiency. It’s inviting more industry companies along with captains and management teams to contribute.
Water Revolution Foundation waterrevolutionfoundation.org
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