Saara Hänninen
Senior Scientist
VTT Ltd
Finland
The Finnish marine sector has specialized in complex vessels like cruise ships and icebreakers and earned a competitive edge in the large cruise ship market with close collaboration of supplier network. In the future, transparency in sustainability will be seen as one of the key competitive advantages in cruise shipbuilding. Within the sector, there is much desire for sustainability innovations to reduce the use of raw materials and resources and to improve energy efficiency. Tools based on lifecycle thinking, such as Life cycle assessment (LCA), Life cycle costing (LCC), carbon footprints and handprints, provide a systematic, impartial, and globally accepted method to assess the sustainability of products and services. Traditionally, the lens has been in the operational phase, however, there is a great potential to decrease ships’ lifecycle costs and emissions already in the early design and building phases. Let the goal be, for example, to build a carbon neutral ship in a carbon neutral shipyard, LCA can be used specifically to determine and evaluate the environmental impacts of the product or activity related to shipbuilding. LCC supports optimizing the total cost of ownership for achieving long-term profitability and improving energy efficiency.
Life cycle assessment is an ISO (International Organization for Standardization) standardized method. ISO 14040 defines the main principles and features of life cycle assessment, where ISO 14044 defines the requirements and gives guidelines for carrying out the assessment. LCA focuses on the product's environmental aspects and potential environmental impacts ideally during its entire life cycle (cradle-to-grave), starting from the acquisition of raw materials, through production, use and decommissioning, all the way to the final disposal of waste and possible recycling (Figure 1). LCA can be roughly divided into two steps: 1. Describing used raw materials and expected emissions occurring during a product's life. This inventory step requires data gathering from databases and one’s own processes. 2. Allocating the inventory results in different impact categories, such as climate change and depletion of abiotic resources. This is referred to as the life cycle impact assessment (LCIA).
Material and energy flows are modelled with special LCA software and databases. The complexity of the shipbuilding value chain and the consequent massive number of materials, products and suppliers brings on challenges that may be tackled with prioritizing and digital data handling. A method called Network LCA is responding to this challenge with automated data collection from the network; it is a tool for LCA data collection, data analysis and sharing the LCA results inside the network. It allows the comparison of alternative products and their environmental impacts. It should be noted that accessing different data sources is not only a technical question; organizations tend to be overprotective about their data and restrict access even from the closest business partners. One solution is to use a trusted operator who constructs a network-level shared LCA model.
The carbon footprint is used to assess and reduce climate impacts. ISO 14067 focuses on the product's carbon footprint, its calculation and communication. Measuring the carbon footprint is only one way of measuring environmental impacts, and global warming is one category of impacts among many whereas LCA considers several. However, the carbon footprint is often the most familiar indicator for both consumers and companies.
Handprint is a new way to evaluate and communicate positive environmental impacts that companies can achieve by offering products that reduce the footprint of their customers. Handprint is a perfect fit for maritime industry products, where the environmental benefits from different design options are often achieved during the operation of the ship. When determining the handprint, two footprints must be calculated: the baseline solution and the offered solution. A handprint is therefore the difference between two alternative solutions which can be applied in addition to carbon emissions, for example, resources, water, air quality or nutrients.
In shipbuilding, LCA and LCC can efficiently support systematic early comparisons and trade-offs between design alternatives from environmental and cost perspectives. Transparency through shared sustainability information is a key for future cruise passengers who are increasingly aware of environmental aspects. Life cycle thinking promotes sustainable shipbuilding practices, driving innovation and environmental responsibility. It provides a factual basis on strategic decision-making, supports product development, and helps to identify reduction potential, not forgetting communicating environmentally friendly solutions to stakeholders.