Changing antifouling practices for leisure boats in the Baltic Sea

Aim and goal

The project aim has been to provide a deep understanding of how individual behaviour and attitudes are linked to governance structures and in the end policy performance.

Challenge

Leisure boating is contributing to the high levels of contaminants in the Baltic Sea. The challenge is to propose how a change in behaviour among boat owners can be achieved to the benefit of the Baltic Sea coastal ecosystem.

Solution

• Obtain a behavioral change perspective by mapping consumer practices and social barriers to sustainable use of antifouling products and techniques
• Suggest legal improvements and propose incentives for environmentally sustainable antifouling systems.
• Establish credibility for the performance of non-toxic methods by testing and evaluating the performance of different antifouling methods.
• Contribute to new risk assessment of antifouling products by measurement of the eco-toxicity of paints, as well as of mixtures of hazardous compounds found in shipyard soil and marine sediments.
• Provide a new cost efficient tool for use in regulatory supervision for boats and boat yards in the Baltic region
• Arrange training and education of boat owners in basic marine ecology, ecotoxicology, human toxicology and legal matters to create incentives for change

Effect

The outcome of CHANGE is a thorough understanding of how the linkages between individual attitudes, behavior, market actors and the legal framework shape the environmental policy performance in the field of toxins from the use of antifouling paints.

For example, antifouling practices are not only a matter of individual choices but rather dependent on structural and cultural conditions, boating lifestyle and marina infrastructure.