Three national finalists have been recognised for their work on sustainability in the sailing industry, with the winner to be announced at the Australian Sailing Awards to be held on November 4 in Sydney.

The Australian SailGP Team is the first to be recognised for their work in the purpose-led, global racing league that champions a world powered by nature.

As the first climate positive sport and entertainment property, it believes in accelerating the transition to clean energy to help combat climate change.

Sustainability is built into SailGP’s DNA to tackle the existential threat of climate change on our planet.

The Australian SailGP Team has a clear purpose – “they race for better sport and a better planet” – underpinning everything they do as a team.

Saying: “Our sport is powered by nature and we know first-hand the importance our planet and our oceans play. A key focus of the team within our purpose is addressing the issues of plastic pollution in the Ocean, which the team’s athletes have witnessed first hand during their years of sailing.”

The Australia SailGP Team uses the platform of sailing and its own platform as a professional sailing team to drive awareness and educate both the sailing and wider sport community on the issues of climate change and ocean pollution.

Underpinning this is the key objective of driving actionable change within the sailing industry and the sport as a whole.

The second finalist, Chris Havre from Royal Melbourne Yacht Squadron, has launched a program called Life Bags, in which he utilizes expired PFD life jackets and converts them into satchel bags.

There are over 2500 Personal Flotation Devices (PFDs) that get disposed of every year by sailors as they are cheaper to replace than repair. To Chris Havre from Royal Melbourne Yacht Squadron, this was an issue he set about to fix.

Chris has connected with a local Victorian group which includes new arrival refugees and together with this partnership, they are able to complete the life bag conversion and sell them at local stores.

So far they have already prevented the disposal of many expired life jackets.

In addition, the encouragement to donate expired jackets is removing the risk of sailors housing these jackets onboard their boats and using them accidentally.

Raising industry standards and knowledge sharing, Chris is currently looking to connect with a large national recycling program to help further the program.

The last national finalist in the Sustainability category, the Marine Environment Committee (MEC) provides the Fremantle Sailing Club (FEC) Board with recommendations for improved environmental stewardship, and co-ordinates events which encourage members to make sustainable choices.

In October 2020, the MEC established the ‘Containers for Change’ (FSC) program.

Bespoke collection bins have been distributed throughout the premises, and boat owners have been provided with special bags to raise awareness of the initiative.

The kit includes a bin and gloves, re-useable bags, pickup tools, hi-vis vests and clipboards with the Tangaroa Blue ‘tally sheets’ for the Australian Marine Debris Initiative (AMDI) database.

It also has an advisory and monitoring role as the required ‘Green Team’, with one grant allocated to the Power Section which included a beach cleanup using the provided kit in the annual ‘Rottnest Olympics’.

Many club events now qualify as clean regattas, with significant efforts being made to reduce single-use items at events.

It also pledges funds toward the relocation and upgrade of the Club’s bicycle storage and installation of solar panels on the new facility to offset a charging station for electric bikes (and possibly also vehicles in the future).

The Committee believes that the improved storage alone will encourage a greater use of bicycles by sailors.

The winner of the Sustainability Award will be announced at the 2022 Australian Sailing Awards in Sydney on November 4. For more information on the National Awards as well as ticket availability, click here.