Wärtsilä launches a product at Slush Helsinki 2018 that should never see the light of day: a lifeboat for buildings. The lifeboats could be used in severe flooding and rising sea levels caused by climate change.
The lifeboat for buildings is not a real product, even though it could be. It is conceptualised and designed by Wärtsilä Ship Design and features smart technologies, such as autodocking, dynamic positioning and wireless charging. The autonomous lifeboat is powered by 100% renewables, like synthetic renewable fuels and solar energy.
Moving Climate Change Discourse to Action
'This hypothetical lifeboat is a way for Wärtsilä to amplify the critical need to move climate change discourse to action. In fact, the concept is not as unimaginable as we first think. The boats would have been useful in the recent floods in Italy and Indonesia. We must act now, together. Or the unthinkable will happen and this lifeboat will have to be built for real,' says Marco Ryan, Chief Digital Officer at Wärtsilä.
Forward-Looking Partners
This year at Slush, the company is looking for start-ups, partners, customers and future colleagues to build a better world with a call to action "Let’s change the course of the future".
'We simply cannot afford to wait for the marine and energy industries to improve at the current pace. Climate change and scarcity of natural resources call for innovative and creative solutions that Wärtsilä is already developing, but we cannot deliver our purpose "enabling sustainable societies with smart technology" without equally forward-looking partners,' emphasises Wärtsilä’s President & CEO Jaakko Eskola.
