Three boatfolk sites are the first marinas to be awarded the new “Clean Marina” accreditation in recognition of comprehensive sustainable management practice.
Launched in June of this year, boatfolk’s Coastline Deadline platform, promotes projects that have “a real, positive and measurable impact on the coastline”, aiming to affect behaviour throughout and beyond the marina community.
Their multifaceted approach embraces various aspects of a more sustainable model of marina management and related activity:
- Reducing plastic pollution, via beach-cleans, clamping down on the use of single-use plastics and installing Seabins.
- Minimising the amount of untreated sewage or pollutants entering marina and coastal waters by facilitating blackwater capture and treatment with pump-out services, employing washdown capture and filtration in yards, using drain interception systems and ensuring spill prevention and treatment.
- Managing segregated and hazardous waste
- Implementing measures to help nudge tenants, contractors, and boaters towards acting more sustainably.
- Employing renewable energy across the marina sites to reduce climate change and the resulting rise of sea levels
Efforts were rewarded during this September’s Southampton Boat Show, when The Yacht Harbour Association (TYHA) recognised three boatfolk marinas, awarding them with the UK’s first Clean Marina accreditations.
The TYHA Clean Marina programme is linked specifically to operational procedures and infrastructure relating to the environment, with an audit process that helps collate best practise and provide guidance for improvement.
This is a scheme that was originally developed in Australia by the Asian-Pacific Marina Industries Association, where a reciprocal agreement is now in place for TYHA to run the corresponding certification system in the UK, Europe and the Middle East.
Dominic Zammit, Director at boatfolk, made the following comment:
At boatfolk we take our responsibility to the planet incredibly seriously. Through the launch of our own sustainable platform for change, Coastline Deadline, we are taking positive action to reduce our impact, and the impact of others, on the coastal environment. When we were approached by TYHA to act as a pilot for the Clean Marina programme, it felt like a natural fit for us to help shape the future green standard for our industry.
Over a number of months, we welcomed rigorous scrutiny on our own processes and through collaborative consultation with the experts at the Green Blue and TYHA, we helped develop an end-to-end operational review to assess the sustainable credentials of any marina. We were honoured to receive the very first Clean Marina accreditations in Europe for three of our own marinas, Portland, Haslar and Portishead, and are looking forward to participating in the assessment across the other eight boatfolk marinas very soon.
We believe passionately that to achieve real and meaningful change within our industry we must collaborate and share best practice across businesses and borders, and we are excited to be working together with our Clean Marina partners in achieving this.”