14 | WATERLINE March 2025 ENVIRONMENT MARINE SUSTAINABILITY PLEDGE By Jeremy Visser, Associate Principal Environmental Consultant / Project Manager (Environment & Risk) BMT The launch of the Marina Industries Association (MIA) Marine Sustainability Pledge (MSP) represents a further opportunity for marine businesses to commit to good environmental performance, building on the previous Single Use Plastics Pledge and the Clean Marina and Fish Friendly Programs. Pledges and certification programs like these are important as the marina industry walks an interesting line between being mostly selfregulating while still being prominently in the public eye. Thus, the MSP, should have key advantages for the industry, such as: • Helping individual businesses to further align with best practice for environmental performance • Promoting the efforts of the industry in self-regulation, both to the public and to regulators Taking the MSP is similar to committing to certification under the Clean Marina and Fish Friendly Programs but has several key differences. Primarily, the pledge is aimed at commitment to overall environmental and sustainability outcomes whereas the accreditation programs are about environmental practice. Additionally, the Clean Marina and Fish Friendly Programs focus principally on point source pollution and marine habitat, while the MSP is intended to be much broader in scope. In this way, it provides a commitment by a marina business that, over time, can lead to comprehensive changes in organisational behaviour with the intent of achieving key sustainability outcomes. Some thoughts on each of the key pledge items: ZERO SINGLE-USE PLASTICS This is a continuation of the previous MIA Single Use Plastics Pledge and aligns with broader efforts across society to eliminate single-use plastics. Despite general changes in societal approaches, this remains a long-term objective due to the lack of plastic alternatives across a lot of areas of life; however, it is important to still take real efforts and sacrifices to cut down single-use plastics as much as possible. CARBON NEUTRALITY AND RENEWABLE ENERGY Similarly, this forms part of the broader social narrative around moving to net zero and carbon neutral futures. This pairs well with the Climate Ready Guidebook developed by the MIA and Gold Coast Waterways Authority (GCWA) which sets out opportunities to achieve carbon neutrality, including guides on greenhouse gas audits and common means of reducing emissions and introducing renewables. WATER CONSERVATION AND POLLUTION PREVENTION While the Clean Marina Program and state environmental regulations have a strong focus on pollution prevention, water conservation is an emerging topic of interest, especially for businesses that do have high water uses. Opportunities exist to undertake water efficiency audits to then form the basis to transition business activities to less water-intensive uses. Pollution prevention will always need to remain a core tenet for marine businesses under approvals and general environmental duty/pollution offence provisions of legislation. This is of particular concern for marine businesses due to their proximity to the water. AIR QUALITY AND POLLUTION CONTROL Similar to water pollution, controls on air quality remain important as part of conformance to approval and regulatory requirements. This will also increase as urban development increasingly encroach upon existing industrial areas. CIRCULAR ECONOMY AND RESOURCE EFFICIENCY Resource efficiency is part of the broader social transition aimed at reducing the generation of waste, especially metals and other materials that either have significant legacy impacts once disposed and/or take significant effort to mine and produce. Bespoke solutions to promote circular economy approaches are being developed for the marine industry but commitment is needed to integrate these into common day-to-day practice. MARINE HABITAT PROTECTION AND RESTORATION While regulation requires detailed assessments of the marine environment when undertaking new capital projects (e.g. new marina and maritime infrastructure, expansions to existing facilities), there is often a lack of corresponding knowledge of the marine habitat values and risks for operating businesses. Despite this, marinas and maritime infrastructure can actually provide a range of unique habitat opportunities for marine fauna. This requires work going ‘above and beyond’ to understand these opportunities and invest in infrastructure adaptation. This aligns in part with efforts under the Fish Friendly Program. COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT AND EDUCATION As many marinas are in the public eye (e.g. due to co-location with public boat ramps, offering of community boating initiatives, physical proximity to foreshore areas) there is an ongoing need to engage with local communities. In particular, there are key opportunities to involve local boaties in support of environmental initiatives, such as monitoring for marine pests and pollution. ACCOUNTABILITY Accountability as part of the pledge is key to ensuring a continuous improvement cycle is ongoing. Overall, the Marine Sustainability Pledge is anticipated to be a key initiative to help both individual marine businesses and the industry as a whole demonstrate an active commitment to the environment and sustainability. If you would like advice on how to implement some of the initiatives above, feel free to reach out to the MIA’s Environmental Partner, BMT, or any of your own trusted environmental consultants. For more information about the Marine Sustainability Pledge see page 8 or contact: Chris Stone, MIA Operations Manager manager@marinas.net.au "The pledge is aimed at commitment to overall environmental and sustainability outcomes ”
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