Sustainability, ecological transition, circular economy, and green are all terms that are used and abused. Society wants politicians, businesses, and the financial world to focus more and more on the environment. We’re looking for the best solutions
by Francesco Michienzi
“Do it for yourself, do it for the environment, do it for the planet”. This is a recurrent slogan in numerous adverts. It’s pure illusion to believe that keeping the plastic handle and simply changing the razor blade when shaving is a noble gesture and not a mere marketing gimmick to sell more razors. The environment is really at risk, but not because of disposable razors. Think of the huge expanses of floating refuse that have accumulated over time in seas and oceans around the world.
Refuse of various kinds, but especially microscopic plastic fragments found both on the surface and at the bottom of the sea. There is a very complex ongoing debate regarding the best solution. Plans to remove plastic from the seas by raking up marine litter also end up collecting and annihilating the animal organisms that have taken root in those ecosystems. It’s like bulldozing a flower-covered meadow full of insects. So should we hold off removing plastic from the seas? There’s no real solution, except upstream: we need to avoid polluting the seas with plastic in the first place because once released it triggers a biological invasion from which there is no going back. Not to mention that human ignorance has devastating effects on the environment through the consequences of our actions, equal only to the mountain of plastic that continues to suffocate the seas. We fight about the main systems and, even today, we’re not shocked if there is no separate waste collection and everything ends up in landfills in some parts of Italy.
PLASTIC PRODUCTION
IS EXPECTED TO DOUBLE OVER THE NEXT TWENTY YEARS. IN THE MEANTIME, PLASTIC RECYCLING RATES STAND AT AROUND 30% IN EUROPE, JUST 9%
IN THE UNITED STATES, AND ZERO
OR THEREABOUTS
IN MOST DEVELOPING COUNTRIES.
Just a small amount of education and responsible behavior can do a lot for the environment. Recreational sailors know this well, being the first to desire an unspoiled sea, and are very sensitive to the issue of respecting it. We find ourselves in a situation in which we want everything to be eco-friendly and simply mentioning the word is enough to give us a clean conscience. It’s a subject that also affects the yachting industry and its construction processes. It’s still not very clear exactly which path to follow. There are no accurate studies and we’re simply following individual people’s intuitions. The more attentive use of research funding made available by various institutions in the hope that it will lead to truly effective solutions.
As regards propulsion systems, hybrid options are establishing themselves as intermediate solutions while waiting for research into fuel cells and hydrogen use, production, storage, and distribution to become established as a technology suitable for propulsion of pleasure boats.
Today, yachting accounts for approximately 0.027 percent of total emissions. Although it is a practically insignificant percentage, it has been sufficient to trigger a transformation process that does not always achieve the goals the various legislators have set themselves. I will never tire of repeating how the SCR catalyst standard is practically irrelevant to environmental protection as far as yachting is concerned.
A LOT HAS BEEN DONE, BUT WE’RE ONLY
AT THE BEGINNING
OF A SUSTAINABLE REVOLUTION. A CHANGE OF MENTALITY IS NEEDED TO MAKE GOOD PRACTICES BETTER UNDERSTOOD.
The process of finding out whether sustainability is real or simply evoked is as challenging as a high-altitude climb. Imagine that you’re packing your backpack. What essential things do you need to take? The first is common sense, then I’d suggest a lot of energy, because you need to avoid the easiest route, declining the help of someone who does it for you at every turn and choosing the steep path of verification by thinking for yourself. Then I’d add a third, even more, invaluable element, which is our time. People go into the mountains knowing that it will be tiring and impassable. There’s something magical about conquering a goal that has no economic value, the taste of a discovery that happens when you’re at the top: you can feel it, talk about it but not convey it. Real sustainability is never an absolute concept: yes or no, black or white. We can be certain of just one thing: everything has an environmental price as well as an economic price. Any company that tells us that we will lower our environmental impact by choosing its products may well be right, but we have to understand why or how and use our common sense to evaluate whether the alternative is better or worse. Real or presumed sustainability is the new frontier of marketing because it’s clear that the problem exists and we all want to do something here and now to make a difference. But if we want to help ourselves and the environment it’s indispensable to think about things conscientiously, always looking at the other side of the coin.
(The other side of the coin – Barchemagazine.com – November 2022)
