The company addresses environmental problems and works on projects to aid sustainability efforts.
Austal Giving supports initiatives that aim to reduce our society's overall environmental footprint, and the business is transitioning towards sustainable energy sources for our boats - however as a big "contractor" essentially, this is reliant on the demands of our customers first and foremost. We have developed and are still continuing R&D on sustainable commercial ferry alternatives to diesel and gas, and this seems to be the trend that the commercial ferry market is following. We could be doing more in this space, but as mentioned previously it is dependent on the demands of our customers as well as that we have yet to hit a critical mass where alternative fuel sources are commercially viable. We also produce ships for the Navy, and in their case they are unlikely to shift to renewable energy sources without extensive testing in a military environment, so for the foreseeable future the defence side of the business is likely to lag behind the commercial side, of which we have proposals and designs we are confident of.
