SUSTAINABILITY MANUFACTURING
create long-term value,” said Jennifer Koenig, Brunswick Chief Sustainability Officer.
Taken together, those efforts point to something important. Sustainability in manufacturing is no longer being treated as separate from cost control, quality and process improvement. Increasingly, they are the same conversation.
12,000 solar panels help to provide power at Mercury Marine in Wisconsin. Photo courtesy of Brunswick Corporation
Brunswick’ s factory-floor approach
Brunswick offers a clear example of how sustainability works as an operational discipline rather than a marketing slogan.
The company has set goals for reducing emissions, increasing renewable electricity use and expanding zero-waste-to-landfill practices across its facilities. More important, it has backed those goals with concrete manufacturing changes.
Across Brunswick Boat Group and Mercury Marine facilities, that has included investments in LED lighting, energy audits, automated controls, leak detection, optimized system pressure and reduced reliance on compressed-air tools. The company has also expanded solar energy projects, both on-site and through broader renewable energy partnerships.
Not glamorous work, but foundational, and exactly what real progress looks like in manufacturing: thousands of smaller decisions that add up to measurable impact.
Every year, Brunswick’ s Sustainability Leadership Awards recognize those contributions across its global operations. In its fifth year, the latest round drew 15 nominations from 11 facilities across seven countries. The projects focus on increased recycling and progress toward zero waste to landfill, electricity reduction and energy efficiency, logistics optimization, and raw-material reduction and circularity.
Winners included the Fond du Lac Facilities Engineering team from Mercury Marine, which installed a waste heat recovery ventilation system in its prop-casting foundry. The system captures warm air from above production furnaces and redistributes it to other areas in the plant, avoiding the need for traditional heating.
Lund Boats was honored for its wood-free decking initiative across three models, replacing plywood with a recycled composite material designed to last the full lifetime of the boat. The transition reduces warranty and ownership costs, improves customer satisfaction and eliminates plywood waste. The recycled composite also repurposes the equivalent of 3.7 million water bottles per year.
And a cross-functional team representing Mercury Marine and Navico Group was recognized for advancing Design for Sustainability( DfS) within Brunswick’ s formal product development process. Pelican, a sensor program in which Mercury sources hardware from Navico, served as the pilot for integrating sustainability tools such as life cycle analysis, circularity assessment, end-of-life planning and packaging redesigned for maximum compactness.
“ These initiatives demonstrate how our employees are embedding sustainability into daily operations in ways that reduce environmental impact, strengthen our business, and
The materials question
Yamaha Marine has committed to carbon neutrality in its operations by 2035 and across its product line by 2050, through new outboard technologies, sustainable fuels and operational improvements.
Yamaha is also developing bio-derived materials across its product lines, including high-strength cellulose nanofiber( CNF), a biomass material made from wood. These plant-derived, recyclable resins are used for engine covers in personal watercraft and sport boats.
The company has also cut production water use by 50 %, recycled more than 100,000 pounds of plastic shipping covers, diverted hundreds of tons of waste and continues to shrink its packaging footprint.
Yamaha Marine has been working on incorporating recycled ocean plastics into the manufacturing process.
Launched in 2019, Yamaha Rightwaters™ continues to support programs that make significant progress in keeping waterways clean and promoting sustainability for generations to come. Photos courtesy of Yamaha Marine
14 april 2026 www. boatingindustry. com