Volvo Ocean Race launches official Sustainability Programme with three key new partnerships
The Volvo Ocean Race has launched a major Sustainability Programme for the 2017-18 edition and beyond – signing partnerships with 11th Hour Racing, AkzoNobel and United Nations Environment, while outlining a series of commitments that focus on ocean health.
The race is putting sustainability at its heart and focusing on taking action to help ‘Turn the Tide on Plastic’ – the rapidly growing and critical problem of plastic polluting the ocean, highlighted by the United Nations Environment’s Clean Seas campaign that is being adopted by the Volvo Ocean Race.
There are three key pillars to the Volvo Ocean Race sustainability strategy:
To minimise the race’s own footprint with a particular focus on reducing and where possible eliminating the use of single-use plastic by the teams, and in the Race Villages – a challenging task but one that will help to change behaviour by making it a focus.
To maximise the race’s impact using its global communications platform to spread awareness, an educational programme to change views, and a science programme, using the Volvo Ocean 65 racing yachts to capture data while at sea and contribute to our understanding of the oceans in the most remote areas of the planet.
To leave a positive legacy wherever it goes, through many actions but in particular the creation of Ocean Summits to bring together science, government, sport and business, with an objective of getting attending parties to commit to new positive actions in this area.
The three partnerships, announced in Gothenburg on Thursday during a major presentation on the race’s future, provide significant amplification of the race’s efforts.
Volvo Ocean Race CEO Mark Turner explained the three pillars of the Volvo Ocean Race strategy.
“Firstly, we have to minimise our own impact and that’s true right across all of our operations. Specifically, we are trying to reduce, or eliminate where we can, single use plastics in our Race Villages and our own operations because that problem in its own right is a major one for the health of our oceans.
“Secondly, we are using our global communications platform to change other people’s views and other people’s behaviour in this respect.
“And, thirdly, our goal is to leave a legacy. We go to 12 Host Cities and in each location we are able to impact, influence, change views, and get new commitments while we are there from governments and business.
“We will use a series of Ocean Summits to bring science, politics, government and sport together to get them to commit to changing the way they behave or operate.”
Looking further ahead, the Volvo Ocean Race will use the One Design race boat platform to do everything possible to reduce and then eliminate fossil fuels on board the boats in the future.
The use of a hydro-generator for the first time during the 2017-18 edition should be a significant first step in reducing the use of fossil fuels, with race management able to mandate the use of the hydro-generators by each team.
The long-term vision will be to eliminate the use of fossil fuels on future boats, while maintaining the minimum energy onboard for safety and communications. The commitment to One Design for the new 60-foot foiling monohull unveiled at the Gothenburg announcement provides the best platform to make this happen in the fastest possible time.
One Design means some small compromises on performance can be made to help deliver better solutions in other areas – for example a small weight gain in a One Design fleet, impossible when teams are doing their own designs, can be imposed to allow a heavier but healthier energy source.
“Achieving zero fossil fuel while maintaining safety and communication capacity will take time as the technologies continue to develop,” commented the race’s CEO Mark Turner, “but the important thing is to have a clear goal and ambition.”
Also in 2017-18, the race opted to deliver to all teams the RIB support boats used for both performance management, safety and guest transfers – rather than each team sourcing their own. By managing the whole process and delivering centrally, the race has been able to switch everyone to using a low emission petrol engine from Volvo Penta – with the best-in-class energy efficiency and environment footprint currently available. Centralising non-performance elements of the teams’ operations has allowed many such savings in both energy footprint and cost.
Further details on this sustainability programme will be released closer to the start of the 2017-18 edition in October.
