MarineShift360 Streamlined LCA Tool for the Marine Industry
Situation
Motivated by consumer demand and expected changes to legislation, the marine industry is under the spotlight to make advances in closed-loop product design, moving away from the linear ‘take-make-waste’ approach and towards a circular economy.
Impact
Enabling the marine industry to fully understand the environmental impact of their products and processes.
Solutions
Situation
The marine industry, driven by consumer demand and imminent legislative changes, was faced with the imperative to transition towards closed-loop product design. To break away from the linear ‘take-make-waste’ approach and embrace a circular economy, experts from a number of industry-leading organisations, led by Anthesis Group, embarked on a mission to develop a revolutionary Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) tool. This tool aimed to quantify and understand the environmental impacts of marine products, facilitating a shift towards smarter, more sustainable design choices.
Solution
Anthesis took the lead in ideating and custom-building an LCA tool, MarineShift360. Seven industry-leading businesses—Allen Brothers, Arksen, Emkay Plastics, Multiplast, Princess Yachts, RS Sailing, and Wessex Resins—joined forces to contribute valuable data from their materials and processes.
This collaborative effort formed the backbone of the LCA tool, which measures the entire life cycle of marine products, enabling users to make informed decisions at the design stage. The tool was developed using the knowledge and experience of over 1,250 sustainability experts, and was designed to create a consistent dataset for the marine industry, encouraging data-driven, efficient choices across manufacturing processes.
How the tool works
Use pre-defined assessment templates to enter your unique data;
- Raw materials
- Production process
- Up and Downstream transport
- Use Phase input
- EOL processing
MS360 will calculate the environmental impact across 7 impact categories using our uniquely tailored database.
- GWP (Fossil & Non Fossil)
- Energy Consumption (Renewable & Non Renewable
- Mineral Resource Scarcity
- Water Consumption
- Marine Eutrophication
- Waste Factor
The impact data is presented in a configurable dashboard so you can truly understand where your ‘Hotspots’ appear and then simulate the variables to ultimately reduce your impact.
Impact
The launch of MarineShift360 marked a significant turning point for the marine industry. Businesses across the industry became newly empowered to make smarter design choices, optimise their resource use, improve their efficiency, and better understand and respond to market needs.
The tool has received significant recognition, winning the METSTRADE DAME Award in 2022, which signifies its crucial role in the marine industry’s journey towards a greener and more sustainable future. The collaborative initiative behind the development of MarineShift360 invited businesses to provide input, ensuring that the data and processes modelled were useful across the industry, and further enhancing and scaling its impact.
