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Foundations of the Future: What’s Next for Sustainability in the Marine Industry?
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Over the past two decades, the marine industry has moved sustainability from theory into practice - developing tools, frameworks, and strategies that now shape how organizations operate day to day.
As these approaches begin to influence industries far beyond the marine world, a new question emerges: what does it take to scale what’s working, and what comes next?
The marine industry’s understanding of sustainability has evolved significantly and Amy Munro and Ollie Taylor are two people who have been at the center of that progress.
Amy is one of the founding minds behind The Toolbox, a practical, open-access framework designed to help organizations build credible sustainability strategies, while Ollie leads MarineShift360, a tool that helps designers and builders measure the environmental impact of their projects.
Supported by 11th Hour Racing, whose open approach advocates collaboration at every turn, their work reflects a broader shift both within the marine world and society as a whole.
We caught up with both Amy and Ollie for an insightful discussion exploring what’s really worked and why—and what lies ahead.
Ollie leads MarineShift360, a platform born after working with the British America’s Cup campaign in 2016. ©11thHourRacing/polaRYSE
When we share, everyone wins
Today, The Toolbox is a suite of guides, tools, and templates designed to create a sustainability strategy for any organization, no matter the size or industry sector.
The platform has achieved international status with over 1000+ members and successful case studies range from the Association of National Olympics Committees and World Rugby to the University of Madrid and a local healthcare trust.
Its origins, though, stem from the marine industry with 11th Hour Racing’s successful sailing team seeing the opportunity to use the power of sport as a force for good and to openly share what they were learning along the way.
“Collaboration is one of the most powerful tools we have as an industry,” Amy explains. “I’m proud to say the marine industry collaborates on a mass scale around this topic.”
This non-competitive mindset and drive for collaborative action is championed by 11th Hour Racing and has been a crucial element to the continued progress.
“The one thing I love about sustainability in our world is that it’s the one area where you don’t have to be in competition,” Amy says. “It’s such a competitive place; the one area where it makes no sense to compete is this.
“Ultimately, we believe—as is the ethos behind The Toolbox—when we share, everyone wins.”
Amy Munro
“Collaboration is one of the most powerful tools we have as an industry."
Amy is one of the founding minds behind The Toolbox, a framework that develops sustainability strategies. ©11thHourRacing/polaRYSE
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Progress needs vision and backing
MarineShift360 has similar foundations to The Toolbox having been born through working with the British America’s Cup campaign in 2016. Keen to understand the environmental impact of running such a complex operation, the team set out to measure and analyze the campaign’s footprint.
“We created a framework and realised there’s some valuable information here, and that’s when we started working with 11th Hour Racing to bring this to the wider industry,” reveals Ollie.
“11th Hour Racing has been pivotal in enabling projects like this to happen. Without that early seed funding, long-term investment, and clear vision, we simply wouldn’t be able to deliver the positive change we all want to see.”
Now, more than 1,000 users from across the marine industry—including sports teams, naval architects, boat builders, designers, engineers, and manufacturers—use the data-backed Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) tool to understand their environmental impact across an entire project lifecycle.
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The Toolbox has achieved international status with over 1000+ members and successful case studies. ©11thHourRacing/polaRYSE
The Toolbox has achieved international status with over 1000+ members and successful case studies. ©11thHourRacing/polaRYSE
For example, sailmaker North Sails used the tool to run an ISO-certified LCA across more than 60 components and uncovered that electricity was their single biggest emissions driver. This led to the installation of renewable energy at their main manufacturing facility alongside redesigning their packaging and adopting new materials—changes that resulted in an annual reduction of 678 tonnes of CO₂.
The simple-to-use nature of the tool and the clarity it provides are critical at a time when maintaining momentum around sustainability has never been more important, as organizations navigate increasingly complex operating environments.
“A few years ago, sustainability was very much an in-vogue topic,” Ollie continues. “Right now, we’re operating in a more challenging space with political headwinds and shifting priorities. “We know cost is often the largest barrier to implementing more sustainable solutions, our focus now is providing funding to the wide range of super interesting, innovative, young, new start-up companies who are creating incredible products. We want to help them get to market scale where it then makes sense.”
A business case for change
With many organizations now understanding the importance of having a sustainability strategy, the big push is now for action. After working in the space in partnership with 11th Hour Racing for more than a decade, both Amy and Ollie clearly understand what the barriers to progress are.
“During stakeholder consultations for The Toolbox, we realized the issue around making the business case internally,” Amy says. “Today, the progression has shifted from raising awareness within organizations to showcasing the business case for change. We’re talking about business resilience in a rapidly changing world.”
Ollie Taylor
“A few years ago, sustainability was very much an in-vogue topic. Right now, we’re operating in a more challenging space."
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Ollie contributed to the Mets Marine Impact Lab at the 2025 Metstrade conference in Amsterdam. ©11thHourRacing/polaRYSE
Ollie agrees: “At MarineShift360, we’re looking at linking the environmental data with long-term commercial growth, to show people that doing what’s right for the environment is probably also right for your business.
“The question is, how do you build businesses that are robust and will continue to thrive in a slightly uncertain future?”
The ambition of this core group of changemakers is to move the entire industry along the education journey, showing that sustainability and strong business fundamentals don’t have to be at odds.
It’s now time to scale
The foundations for meaningful, scalable change are now firmly in place. The tools exist, the data is available, and the marine industry has shown that collaboration—not competition—is what drives real progress.
What comes next is scale: scaling adoption, scaling investment, and scaling shared responsibility across the industry. Moving sustainability forward will require organizations not only to use these tools, but to actively participate in building the systems that support long-term impact—through shared learning, collective funding models, and a willingness to work together toward common goals.
“We need scale,” says Ollie. “We need the entire industry to understand what we understand, and to apply it in a way that fits within commercial models.”
Ollie Taylor
"We need the entire industry to understand what we understand, and to apply it in a way that fits within commercial models."
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The Toolbox, ran by Damian Foxall alongside Amy, is a suite of guides, tools, and templates designed to create a sustainability strategy for any organization. ©11thHourRacing/polaRYSE
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More than 1,000 users from across the marine industry use MarineShift360's data-backed Life Cycle Assessment (LCA.) tool. ©11thHourRacing/polaRYSE
One approach currently being explored is a Marine Impact Climate Fund—a collective effort in which industry stakeholders each contribute a small amount to create a shared pool of resources that can be strategically deployed for maximum impact.
“The contributing organizations would benefit significantly over the long term,” Ollie believes. “It’s potentially a fund that could help cement the future of the industry.”
As 11th Hour Racing continues to act as a catalyst for collaboration and innovation, the invitation is open—for designers, builders, teams, manufacturers, and partners across the marine world to engage, contribute, and help shape what comes next.
The future of sustainability in the marine industry will not be defined by a single organization, but by the collective actions of many. And the opportunity to lead that future is here.
Discover more about MarineShift360
Discover more about The Toolbox
Hero image credit: ©11thHourRacing/polaRYSE
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