Public awareness on sustainability is growing. But sometimes it’s not easy to find out the true story behind certain applications. That’s why we’d like to shed some light on the sustainability of an AllWaves wavepool. The United Nations’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provide a great shared blueprint for that.
Planet
Some background information first. Global warming, caused by human activity releasing CO2 emissions and other Greenhouse Gases (GHG’s), is currently the biggest threat to our civilization. According to the IPCC we currently have 5 years left to act if we still want to keep our planet under the crucial 1,5°C global warming threshold. We also know that the main cause of CO2 emissions (GHGs) comes from burning fossil fuels. Summed up, they represent 73% of global CO2 emissions. The main CO2 emitting sectors are the energy sector, the industrial sector, the agricultural sector… and the transport sector (flights, cars, trucks, trains …).
Surfers are famous for their passion for ocean and nature protection in general. Unfortunately, they are also important travellers seeking to surf the best waves around the world. However, in recent years people have become more conscious of some types of excessive travel. Nevertheless, in some regions it proves difficult to surf regularly. So until now, traveling (with its related impacts) was the only way to exercise their passion.
We are convinced, thanks to the rising availability of wavepools, many ‘non-essential’ surf trips could be avoided. As surfers will be satisfied with regular waves in the wavepool & less hassle from traveling.
Affordable & clean energy
Of course, wavepools need energy to create waves. Luckily, we do not need fossil fuels to generate our waves. An Allwaves wavepool is currently best in class regarding energy efficiency. Check out our energy whitepaper to discover how surfing a wavepool compares to other energy consuming activities. And to further reduce our CO2 impact, we contracted 100% renewable & clean energy to power our waves. (SDG 7) Our partnership with Bolt Energy ensures our energy use is 100% renewable, local & transparent. Our energy is sourced from a hydropower station on the Maas, Belgium’s biggest river. We urge our B2B customers to power an AllWaves wavepool with renewable energy.
Water usage
For sustainability reasons, we are filling our wavepool with drainage water from a nearby construction site, so no wasted tapwater. All our components can be used in chlorinated, fresh or salt water. This implies, depending on the scarcity of water in your region, our B2B customers have options to operate as natural as possible. They can even connect their wavepool with a nearby body of water.
People & Prosperity
We believe in creating a positive impact to people. That’s why we are supporting nonprofit organisations (SDG 17), more on that in another article.
In the future, wavepools will become an integral part of green cities worldwide. Providing decent work & economic growth. (SDG 8, 11). Making surfing safe & accessible for all benefits good health & well-being (SDG 3). It also benefits gender equality as generally line-ups are dominated by men (SDG 5) . We believe bringing more people in contact with surfing, will increase their respect for the sport & for nature. Many of our B2B customers will combine the operation of a wavepool with an educational aspect about the ocean, which we only encourage.
Conclusion
With Allwaves, we believe we can provide an answer to some of the current climate, environmental & surf consistency challenges. Of course, we will never replace the perfect surf travel experience in and around the ocean. But we could offer a regular surf experience with multiple co-benefits, such as reduced CO2 emissions, time gain, improved mental & physical health, jobs & tourism,…
In the coming month we’ll further work on improving the sustainability of an AllWaves wavepool & our sustainability strategy. As our biggest impact will come from the use of our Allwaves technology around the world (scope 3 emissions). This is why we firmly insist to our potential clients that our technology would always be powered with renewable energy.
At AllWaves we remain passionate about renewable energy and any technology that can help improve quality of life in a sustainable way. We are constantly innovating to further reduce the impact of our operations. We live in interesting times with among others an energy crisis. Although these create a lot of heartache, they also create opportunities for innovation. We believe it will help us revolutionize our industry again and this time with a focus on our Sustainable Development Goals.
Keep surfing!
The Waveshapers
