The organisers of international boat shows have made some important strides when it comes to making their events more sustainable. From my perspective, this is by far the greenest show season that I’ve ever attended. However, while I do believe that the organisers deserve recognition for their efforts, I think there is still a very long way to go. 

Over the last month or so there has been a lot of encouraging news from businesses in yachting with ambitious promises of becoming more environmentally friendly. The industry events have served their purpose so far by championing sustainable initiatives and acting as a platform for an array of interesting debates and discussions. Although, to this point, I would argue that simply talking about sustainability is cheap and insufficient if it’s done in a marina full of mostly unsustainable superyachts and floating plastic.

For the purpose of this article, I will exclude factoring in the carbon footprint of 35,000+ people travelling to various locations and staying in hotels as that warrants its own separate debate and conversation. For now, I would like to simply focus on plastic waste. It is striking, and depressing, to walk out of a press conference about sustainability and see so many overflowing bins and plastics floating in the water. Unfortunately, a lot of this waste is coming…