European Boating Industry (EBI) represents the recreational boating and nautical tourism industry in Europe, which encompasses the following subsectors:
They are the European umbrella organisation for EU Marine Industry Associations and although British Marine is not a member, we work closely together on a number of projects.
Blue Boat Horizon (LCA) - Setting a path for reducing marine life cycle emissions from recreational vessels of under 24m Hull Length.
The Blue Boat Horizon project, originally started by the European Boating Industry before being joined by ICOMIA and the NMMA, is now reaching the end of the first phase of its development.
The project, now active for just over a year, aims to develop a Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) Life Cycle Assessment recognized by the European Union. This initiative supports the boating industry's shift towards sustainability, aligning with emerging regulations like the Green Claims Directive (GCD) and contributing to broader national and international environmental goals. The ultimate objective of the project is to establish official Product Environmental Footprint Category Rules (PEFCR).
This Life Cycle Assessment process gives businesses the opportunity to follow a comprehensive approach to evaluating the environmental impact of recreational boats offering a multicriteria analysis going beyond just greenhouse gas and tailpipe emissions to include impacts like energy use, waste, material resources, land use, and both freshwater and marine pollution. The methodology developed by the BBH project is practical, scalable, and tailored to be accessible for all industry stakeholders across the value chain, including SMEs.
Seventeen major boat yards and twelve National Marine Industry Associations along with industry stakeholders, LCA experts, legal experts and supply chain representatives have taken part, giving over 2000 hours of development support in phase one, the initial development of the life-cycle assessment framework.
The phase one framework will now have a final review before being released for testing and trials to project partners later this summer, the project leaders are now looking for additional stakeholders to join the project for the next phases, including the ability to take part in the trials period, British Marine will be running an online briefing in May to highlight the project, an overview of the current framework and announcing how you can get involved, if you would like to find out more information please contact technical@britishmarine.co.uk.
Phase two, the global phase of the project, comes next, in cooperation with the NMMA and ICOMIA.
The aim continuing to be bringing together an industry database and LCA tool that everyone in the sector, from small businesses to larger serial production yards, can make us of.
The phase 1 methodology provides a strong foundation and framework that will now be further developed to transition from a PEF-aligned framework to full PEFCR compliant framework recognised by the EU with continued testing and development planned to further improve and optimise the methodology over the next phase.
The project is industry-financed, with the renowned environmental sustainability consultancy Quantis as technical partner.
This project builds on the comprehensive and independent ‘Pathways to Propulsion Decarbonisation for the Recreational Marine Industry’ study published in November 2023.
British Marine is one of the National MIA's who are supporting this project, with a seat on the steering committee and ensuring the UK marine industry voice is heard within the workshops developing the standard.
If you are interested in taking part in the project please contact technical@britishmarine.co.uk.