Interview: Circularity and superyachts with Arksen CEO Jasper Smith

Chatting with Arksen founder and CEO Jasper Smith, his enthusiasm for adventure is infectious. An accomplished entrepreneur, his career trajectory speaks of his appetite for adventure and bold decisions. He’s never been the timid type.

As an ambassador for Patagonia, he spent his youth climbing mountains, sent on “extraordinary adventures and expeditions”. However, a formal career beckoned and in his early twenties he turned from the physical to the digital, carving out a stellar career in tech. 

His five-years young business, Arksen launched in 2019 but, as Jasper tells it, “these powerful projects start a long time ago”. The lightbulb moment came on a trip to Greenland with his son. The scale of the landscape and the rate of change was “unfathomable”. Seeing the ice caps melt at pace, Jasper wondered: “What do I want to do with the rest of my life? It was one of those moments.” He yearned to “go back to physical things, rather than ones and zeros and writing code. To create a space for people who love the authenticity of adventure, and what that means to humanity”. 

Today the culmination of his business acumen and this longing, his dream for Arksen is “to create an ecosystem for adventure”. Spanning high-class marine explorer vessels, overland vehicles, expedition apparel, and a bespoke travel and experiences offering, Jasper’s adventure-first approach is the heart of the business. He’s relatively product agnostic, championing exceptional designs “built without compromise”, which equip individuals to go out and “experience the world”. SEAWORTHINESS AND SUSTAINABILITY 

Launched as a superyacht business, creating a long-distance explorer yacht was the first challenge. With each boat featuring “about three and a half million components”, trying to overhaul the industry’s manufacturing was a mammoth undertaking but, undeterred, Jasper set about tackling it, intent on creating something reliable and seaworthy, while upholding Arksen’s sustainable ideals.

“In the context of a changing world where marine research and ocean health are paramount, it felt really appropriate to try and go a different way.” The solution was a circular economy approach, with fully-hybrid explorer boats offering 7,000 mile range, already 70% recycled at the brand’s launch. “They take years to build and auditing the supply chain to make sure that they’re sustainable and ethical from day one is an enormous challenge”. Undeterred, the dedication paid off and, across the marine industry, brands have taken note.

“When you want to build a business, you start off with ‘what’s the biggest problem? What are you trying to solve?’ In the marine industry, explorer boats were built of white plastic hulls — full of unsustainable materials, and very inefficient. We’ve been a catalyst for change. People reference Arksen as being a blueprint. Whether we succeed or fail, a small percentage will follow [and] within five to ten years, anyone who’s still building big white plastic boats — those legacy models will become increasingly hard to defend.”BUSINESS AND BRAND

Branching out from the marine industry into other categories was a natural evolution, approached through the same planet-first lens. “Our brand purpose is to serve people who are curious about our planet. It’s about trying to engender and equip [them], to put them in a position where they’ve got the confidence and the motivation to go off and do these amazing journeys.”

Across the various products, for Jasper this underpins everything — from how they engineer to how they express themselves — and means Arksen as a business is “very singular”. “Adventure is a true multi-category sector. It’s what you drive, what you say, what you wear, where you go, what mountains or oceans you cross or climb…it’s people who live to be brave, be courageous, who want to get off the beaten track. Whether they’re buying a pair of socks or a 10 million pound Super Yacht, the ambition is very cojoined. Someone who has one of our Overland vehicles will be interested in buying one of our adventure boats or clothing.”

How adventure is expressed is pivotal to the brand, and something Jasper takes seriously. “We have a filmmaking team; a whole production unit, and everything’s done in-house. We’re completely committed to really great brand content which tells emotional stories. It’s a great way of the brand establishing its credentials and getting narrative out. We can really punch above our weight through exceptional content.” 

Speaking of exceptional content, Jasper and Arksen’s in-house filmmaking team are nearing the culmination of a five-year long storytelling project, working with leading wildlife production company, Silverback Films, and legendary British broadcaster, Sir. David Attenborough. The 75 minute documentary comes out on June 8th next year, World Ocean Day and, for Jasper, is a great example of what they can do to encourage behaviour change.

“Arksen’s a tiny brand, and we get to play with these extraordinary stories and bring them to life in a way few other brands can. It’s just the start for us.”PROFIT AND PURPOSE 

With storytelling and sustainable ideology being so central to Arksen, where does idealism ends and profit begin? Jasper is clear: “If you want to be in business, you’ve got to be pro-planet. Anything that isn’t is effectively destroying the planet. You’ve got to start with that premise; adopt practices that are gentle on the environment; embrace a circular economy. You build for a long life because that’s the best thing you can do. You engineer so that you can repair.”

For him “none of it felt like a choice — business with an ethical core. That’s why we put purpose first. Our mission is really the constant conservation and preservation of the ocean. Because without that, the entirety of humankind perishes anyway”.

Finding investors that align with these ideals is surely essential then? “Yes, so important.” Arksen look for partners willing to take a long-term view to “help us be a change agent, to build a brand that has the potential for extraordinary scale, and achieve that scale by treading as lightly as possible”.

CO2 targets and traditional metrics aside, Jasper is an advocate for philanthropy and judges success through impact. “We’ve [already] supported 70 marine organisations in 27 countries, funding 300 discrete projects. Those go from coral reef restoration and seagrass replanting, to deep science projects with the National Oceanography Center. It feels tangible — we put money in, we [all] get lots of data back. 

And his sustainability-first approach seems to be working. “People come to us. Because they’re like, okay, you’re doing stuff in a slightly different way to most other companies, and I really like that”. His hope for the future is for that the “community gets larger and more impactful. The larger that community is, the stronger the messages become — and that’s how you change industries”.

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