Developed for the boats competing in the Vendée Globe, the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) has now become the norm at VPLP Design and applies to all our racing, leisure marine and maritime transport projects. Under the supervision of Katia Merle, structural engineer at VPLP since 2019 and contact for environmental subjects, and her assistant student engineer Charles Divry, this scheme has resulted in the in-house development of new tools that allow us to make the best compromises early in the initial design phase. Let’s take a closer look.
“In order to reduce environmental impact, you first need to be able to measure it.” . It’s from this common-sense premise that the IMOCA class set out to improve its green credentials in 2020. This project to update the class rules, to which VPLP Design was invited to contribute, drew heavily on the comprehensive study undertaken by 11th Hour Racing, originators of the Marine Shift 360 application in November 2024.
At the same time, France’s leisure marine trade association La Fédération des Industries Nautiques (FIN), in collaboration with a diverse panel of boat builders, including Beneteau and Grand Large Yachting, undertook an in-depth study which has since been taken up by the European Boating Association. “These are ambitious and very long-term projects,” says Katia Merle. “While we wait for the publication of an appropriate standard, we felt it necessary to develop our own measuring tools.”
While naval architects sitting in their offices might seem remote from the many sources of environmental impact (procurement of raw materials, production methods, recovery and processing of waste, boat use, etc.), they are also the people with the most intimate knowledge of the subject. “Ply by ply, we know everything that has gone into the boat,” she says. “We soon understood that we had to make an impact analysis with the same meticulousness and using the same tools as with a weight estimate.”
Construction and equipment, a fifty-fifty split
The vast spreadsheets which list each part of a sailing boat and its precise position aboard are now being enriched with a new factor that quantifies environmental impact. “Today, we know how to quantify with precision the CO2 emitted by the construction of a sandwich panel and its solid counterpart,” explains Katia Merle. “We have also understood that, whatever the type of leisure marine boat, the composite structural parts on the one hand, and the fittings and equipment on the other, split the total impact fifty-fifty. While the scope of our input is limited to only some of these components, the observation has nevertheless encouraged us to pursue our efforts in expanding our LCA provision to every aspect of a boat fitted out for sea.”
Charles Divry adds: “It’s up to us to work with the builders to get the missing data.” A student working part-time at VPLP as part of his Master’s degree in Marine Engineering at Lorient University (UBS), Charles is also working on making the data readily accessible for the other members of the team and VPLP’s clients.
Because the question of the benefits and savings arising from LCA will undoubtedly come up. “In addition to studies undertaken on large leisure vessels,” says Charles Divry, “we have also done a lot of work with Outremer. We have concluded from all this work that, if we apply simultaneously all the identified levers, the carbon footprint of boat construction could decrease by 10% to 20% without significantly altering the boats.”
A question of carbon
On the basis of VPLP’s initial studies on the data, the construction of a boat represents only 30% of the impact of its entire life cycle, the remaining 70% being linked to fuel consumption. This ratio varies considerably according to operating profiles but it nevertheless raises the issues of boat weight and usage. The latter can be resolved through designs that promote sail propulsion, through improvements to mechanical propulsion, and by displaying recommendations for sustainable sailing.
While highly impacting during construction, carbon fibre could nevertheless become viable thanks to the weight saved both directly and indirectly, which in turn reduce fuel consumption. “Our studies, which looked at every aspect of our business, allowed us to clarify this issue and conclude that, within the context of building a cruising catamaran, for it to be worthwhile in terms of environmental considerations, a solution leveraging carbon fibre would have to generate much greater weight savings than it actually does. We are now in a position to be able to verify whether structural carbon fibre ‘pays its way’ aboard. For us, the definition of ‘environmental performance’ needs to be the new performance measurement.” For Katia Merle, the first of these levers would be to abandon the use of carbon fibre for this type of use.
She concludes: “For the construction of an electric ferry fitted with foils, using carbon fibre throughout the build could be worthwhile from an environmental viewpoint. The conclusion would not be the same for a cruising catamaran used by its owner, and different again for a boat destined for the charter business. What is certain is that the architect is supremely positioned to determine the right levers to pull, and that is very exciting!”
