Carbon impact report

The oceans cover 72% of the Earth’s surface and serve as a critical corridor for global trade, national defense, and economic development. Yet, vast areas of the oceans remain unexplored and unmonitored, leaving blind spots that threaten national security and limit strategic advantage.

Saildrone uncrewed surface vehicles (USVs) use primarily wind and solar power to deliver persistent, autonomous presence across the world’s oceans—with zero to minimal operational emissions depending on mission requirements. Saildrone USVs provide the maritime intelligence needed to close information gaps on missions ranging from illegal activity detection to seafloor mapping and resource assessment. By enabling real-time, actionable insights at sea, Saildrone strengthens national security, supports sovereign maritime operations, and helps unlock the full potential of the blue economy while preserving the ecological integrity of the planet.

This second edition of Saildrone’s Carbon Impact Report demonstrates our commitment to environmental stewardship. To assess our carbon impact, Saildrone analyzes the emissions resulting from business activities, as well as the emissions avoided through our low-carbon solutions compared to traditional alternatives. This methodology helps us focus on both “doing less harm” by continuously reducing our operational emissions and “doing more good” by expanding the adoption of our technology to avoid emissions generated by traditional ocean monitoring solutions. This year’s results prove that sustainable ocean operations aren’t just possible—they’re highly effective and demonstrate that we can scale maritime operations while dramatically reducing carbon impact.

Three breakthrough results defined our 2023 carbon performance:

99.9% emissions avoided: Saildrone’s avoided emissions grew from 8,289 tonnes of CO₂e in 2022 to 25,708 tonnes of CO₂e in 2023—a 210% increase. While traditional vessels would have generated 26,111 tonnes of CO₂e to complete our 2023 missions, Saildrone USVs produced only 24 tonnes of CO₂e—avoiding 99.9% of comparable traditional vessel emissions.

Avoided ~2.25x company footprint: Saildrone’s avoided emissions of 25,708 tonnes exceeded the entire company’s GHG footprint by 223%, meaning we avoided more than twice the carbon we produced across all business operations.

Sustainable scaling: More significantly, we achieved a 56% year-over-year improvement in our carbon impact ratio—avoiding 2.23 tonnes of CO₂e for every 1 tonne produced, up from 1.43 in 2022—despite a 98% increase in total emissions and a 21% rise in emissions intensity due to the deployment of new USV classes. We accomplished this while expanding operational scale by 63%, sailing a distance equivalent to circumnavigating the Earth 14 times.

These results represent more than efficiency gains—they demonstrate that the future of maritime operations lies in renewable energy, autonomous systems, and technologies that simultaneously strengthen national security and environmental protection.
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