103 role substantially. The big potential for further decarbonisation lies in the vessel’s design, leveraging energy efficiency and embedded carbon (through reuse, repair-refurbishingremanufacturing and recycled content) to obtain resource efficiency. If these factors are not being weighed in from the start of conceptualisation of a ship build, efficiencies in sustainability will be extremely hard to achieve, rendering the execution by default more expensive. Sustainability key performance indicators like resources and energy efficiency should be part of initial design requirements and need to be of equal importance to weight and fire safety. As we are dealing with a new economic system, we are also facing a lot of ‘known unknown’ variables, underdeveloped or non-existing infrastructures, and technologies and materials in the beginning of their innovation curve. The challenge is therefore to de-risk capital expenditures whilst keeping viable profitability. To reach minimal EU Green Deal thresholds, it is not a question of whether to make investments. It is when. Following their deadlines and alongside the minimum regulatory and legislative requirements applicable to your reality, you can strategically plan the necessary investments in time. Inefficiencies and a lack of scale in volume, reverse logistics, infrastructure and processing capacities are the main reasons why sustainable and circular solutions are more costly and underperforming. Scenario comparison and active collaboration with your value chain partners, aligning the operational realities of designers, suppliers and processing industries allow this to be mitigated. A single company will never be able to tackle challenges regarding scale and inefficiencies on its own. Making the business case for sustainability is an ecosystem effort. ADDING SUSTAINABILITY TO EXISTING DESIGN REQUIREMENTS Learning from the built environment, balancing functional design and material choice for improved energy performance and resources efficiency is an effective way to decrease environmental footprint and costs. When integrating sustainability in design, start with asking basic questions using the R-strategies. What happens after the product’s useful life? Is there an infrastructure in place to take it back and to reuse/repair/refurbish/remanufacture/ recycle it? Who’s responsible for it? An inability to answer these questions indicates that a solution is inapt and has inherent inefficiencies. Questioning clarifies the circular potential and actual output, facilitating purchasing decisions. Following the European Sustainability Reporting Standards structure, categories to consider are: climate change; pollution to air, water and soil; resources use and circular economy; biodiversity and ecosystems; marine resources and water. Using these as a direction for selection, the asset is actively being de-risked as a contributor to an undertaking’s environmental footprint, increasing its attractiveness to investors. A total-cost-of-ownership approach is necessary when comparing existing solutions with sustainable alternatives. This ensures a solution’s actual costs and impacts over the full life span (use, maintenance and end-of-life) are calculated – costs which are usually overlooked, creating inefficiencies and rendering sustainable solutions seemingly more expensive. Components of sustainability, the European way The main pillars of the EU Green Deal, along which all legislative and regulatory initiatives (a non-exhaustive sample of which are included below) can be classified, are: resources, emissions and due diligence. “ Making the business case for sustainability is an ecosystem effort” COMMENTARY
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