While the voting procedure for the 2019 GREEN4SEA Awards is open, Mrs. Sarah Zitouni, Business Development Manager, Lean Marine, notes that shipowners need simple, efficient and green solutions to comply with the environmental challenges and explains how its “FuelOpt™ system may be perceived as such a solution by shipowners. The company has been nominated for this solution in the ‘Clean Shipping’ category among other distinguished nominees. Mrs Zitouni concludes that there is need for better communication and cooperation between charters and shipowners in order the industry to face the environmental challenges in a responsible way.
SAFETY4SEA: Your organization has been shortlisted for the 2019 GREEN4SEA Awards in the ‘Clean Shipping’ category alongside a number of other distinguished nominees. What would you like to share with industry’s stakeholders with respect to this development?
Sarah Zitouni: We are very happy and proud to have been nominated for this event. At Lean Marine, we stand for pragmatic solutions to protect our environment and our planet. With our FuelOpt solutions, ship owners and charterers save between 3 and 10% fuel, improving at the same time their profitability while operating greener. Importantly, any ship owner, from any vessel, can use our solution after only 3 days of installation that don’t require a docking of the vessel. Simple, efficient, green solutions: we stand at the crossroads between the financial needs of the company and the ecological needs of humanity.
S4S: When it comes to tackling the shipping challenges with respect to sustainable shipping, what are the core priorities on your agenda?
S.Z.: We know that ship owners are offered multiple costly solutions to be more sustainable and in a time where shipping doesn’t always pay as one would want, it can be a challenging dilemma. FuelOpt is a solution that won’t require hidden costs like docking time or future added maintenance costs. It won’t require a change of propeller or a redesign of your hull. FuelOpt takes control of the ship as it is and at all times finds the optimal parameters for your propulsion. Your operational constraints are respected while burning as little fuel as possible. At a future date other solutions can be implemented to complement our system. The beauty of FuelOpt is that you can tackle the lowest hanging fruit first and still make a substantial difference to the environment and your profitability.
S4S: What are the key drivers for the decarbonization of the industry? What is the way forward?
S.Z.: The current talks are often about methanol use, battery powered vessels… It depends what timeline we are looking at. We, at Lean Marine, would like to make the industry greener and more sustainable today, every day, little by little. Newbuildings should include solutions that would move us towards a decarbonization of the industry. However, we also need to tackle the very large existing fleet and start today without further delay. For this reason, fuel reduction solutions and the use of renewable fuel are what we perceive as the way forward for a short-term action, implementable right now.
S4S: Do you have any new projects on the pipeline and/or plans that you would like to share with the rest of the industry?
S.Z.: We are currently working on developing further our Fleet Analytics tool, a useful add-on to Fuel Opt. Once you are saving fuel with our automated captain FuelOpt, you can choose to learn more about the overall performance of your vessels and the impact of your operational choices: exactly what Fleet Analytics provides you. With good input data from FuelOpt and an easy interface like Fleet Analytics, knowledge is translated into tangible power!
S4S: If you could change one thing about the shipping industry, what would it be and why?
S.Z.: If we were given one wish for a change in the shipping industry, we would choose the power of communication. With the challenges ahead of us, and especially the responsibility we all have to be greener, we would like to see charterers and ship owners work and communicate closer. Within the ship owning companies, we would like to see also a more fluid communication between technical departments and operations. We believe that 2 brains put together perform better than one, and four brains bring out better ideas than two. If these stakeholders could brainstorm together, they would for sure have the power to find the most suitable way forward, away from polluting technology and towards sustainable shipping.
You may cast your vote for Lean Marine at 2019 GREEN4SEA Awards dedicated webpage till 22nd of February 2019!
The views presented hereabove are only those of the author and not necessarily those of SAFETY4SEA and are for information sharing and discussion purposes only.
