Superyachts are the ultimate status symbol for royal families, oligarchs and billionaires, from Jeff Bezos to Bernard Arnault. Floating palaces are a source of fascination and secrecy – and greenhouse gas emissions.
Global warming pollution caused by luxury ships that benefit very few people has led social scientist Gregory Salle to call them a form of “ecocide” and “visible isolation” in his new book, Superyachts: Luxury, Tranquility and Ecocide.
There are almost 6,000 superyachts – that is, vessels longer than 30 meters (100 feet) – at sea, according to a report released earlier this year by trade media and information company SuperYacht Times. The total has quadrupled over the past three decades.
“It’s hard to think of a more compelling sign of wealth than that if you own a superyacht,” said Salle, a professor at the University of Lille in France.
The concentration of wealth has not only led to the explosion of superyachts. This has also led to a distribution of emissions per capita, with the wealthiest living the most carbon-intensive lifestyles.
The richest 10% on the planet are already responsible for half of global carbon dioxide emissions, according to an Oxfam study. The non-profit organization found that it would take 1,500 years for someone in the bottom 99% to emit as much carbon as one of the world’s biggest billionaires. The emissions of the ultra-rich come from a variety of sources, including big houses and frequent air travel. But superyachts are their biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions, according to a 2021 study.
Annual CO2 emissions from the 300 largest superyachts amount to almost 285,000 tonnes, according to Salle’s book, an amount higher than that of the entire country of Tonga.
Superyachts are also more than just climate polluters. Sewage, noise and light pollution, particles in exhaust gases and even where ships dock can have a detrimental effect on the local environment. These outsized impacts are why Salle called the ships a form of ecocide.
The term, coined in the 1970s, refers to the deliberate destruction of nature and has often been used to describe the actions of the wealthy given their outsized carbon footprint. In 2021, lawyers proposed codifying ecocide into international criminal law, putting it on equal footing with genocide. European Union lawmakers voted earlier this year to criminalize environmental damage “comparable to ecocide.” It remains to be seen whether the new law will be used to continue the use of superyachts.
Some owners are aware of the dangers their ships pose to the environment. Jeff Bezos’ $500 million superyacht Koru set sail in April 2023 with sails to aid its voyage. However, it is still equipped with diesel engines. Oxfam estimates that the 127-meter (416-foot) ship emitted 7,000 tons of carbon dioxide over the past year, an amount equal to the annual emissions of 445 average Americans.
This estimate is also almost certainly low, as the calculations take into account that the yacht is waiting rather than in transit. This number also does not include Koru’s companion yacht, Abeona, a 75 meter support motor yacht that functions as a garage with a helicopter pad and jet skis.
The sails on Bezos’ ship are an exception: the vast majority of superyachts are solely powered by an engine. Only eight new sailboat builds were completed in 2023, compared to 195 new motor yachts.
Understanding a superyacht’s true carbon emissions is incredibly difficult due to the lack of data collected and the inherently secretive nature of yachting, according to Malcolm Jacotine, founder of superyacht consultancy Three Sixty Marine. Using data from the International Maritime Organization, Jacotine estimates that emissions from recreational boating will reach 10 million tonnes by 2030 if the industry takes a “business as usual” approach.
To help owners understand the impact of their boats, he has developed two carbon emissions calculators. They have limitations, however, as they rely on voluntarily reported data and estimates of tonnes of diesel fuel.
Yachts spend 10-20% of the year sailing and relying on engine power. Boats only reach their maximum speed 0.1% of the year, according to Robert van Tol, executive director of the Water Revolution Foundation. The rest of the year, the ship is a floating hotel, relying on generators that run longer and emit more CO2, according to Jacotine’s calculations.
Nonetheless, emissions data is collected on a boat-by-boat basis, and one yacht may travel more than another in a year, making emissions higher, according to Oxfam researchers. Yachts are exempt from the International Maritime Organization’s emissions rules, so a boat’s true emissions are difficult to discern. This reflects how superyachts are both ostentatious and somewhat unrecognizable.
“Superyachts are made to be noticed,” Salle said. “But (they are) also very secretive vehicles in the sense that you cannot access the interior if you are not invited.”
New builds focus less on motors reaching top speeds and more on hotel energy savings. But sustainability may not be at the forefront of purchasing decisions.
“Buying a yacht is not a completely rational decision,” said Ralph Dazert, chief intelligence officer at SuperYacht Times, a media and market analysis firm. “It’s quite an emotional thing because it costs you an absolute fortune.”
In 2023, the total value of yachts sold was 4.6 billion euros ($4.9 billion), according to Dazert. He said the movement toward sustainability will be driven largely by shipyards and engineers adding features to new builds, including using recycled materials. New types of fuels could also reduce emissions.
This year, Italian shipbuilder Sanlorenzo will test the first 50-meter steel yacht powered by hydrogen fuel cells, and another 114-meter yacht from German shipbuilder Lürssen with the same technology is in production for 2025 for Marc , former watch developer at Apple Inc. News on.
But the bigger the building, the longer the waiting time. This means that some of these features will take years to appear in the open ocean, according to Jacotine.
In an effort to improve the image of superyachts, some owners are making theirs available for research and exploration. This includes a new 195-meter yacht owned by Norwegian billionaire Kjell Inge Rokke, which is expected to launch in 2026 with more than 50 scientists to study the ocean. (It is also available for custom cruises.)
As public attention intensifies, superyachting is a customer-focused industry. And for most buyers, luxury still trumps climate concerns. Salle noted that, like many high-end items, superyachts are not just products. They are representative of a “lifestyle”, today closely linked to carbon-intensive activities.
“Ecocide is something that causes deep damage, damage that lasts over time,” Salle said. “You could apply that to what (superyachts) are doing, not just individual… but global.”
