Infrastructure transformation and collaboration between all maritime and onshore stakeholders will be key to achieve net zero goals, according to speakers at the ICS Leadership Insights Live.
Namely, speaking on the event, Guy Platten, ICS Secretary General, said that the efforts that will be needed in the coming years to meet decarbonisation goals will be the following:
Moving the world’s shipping fleet to new, lower or zero carbon sources of energy will require a huge effort to transform the existing fuel production, bunkering and port infrastructure and demands collaboration across sectors. But the imperative for change and the willingness to succeed are there, and will provide opportunities to drive global growth and prosperity
What is more, Sakura Kuma, CEO, APM Terminals, Japan also noted that ports of the future will “inevitably go towards automation” in the mid to long term. Two factors driving this in Japan, she explained, are the pressure to improve the working environment at ports and an ageing work force and lower birth rates creating labour supply issues.
Automation will be the future picture. To do that the first step for automation is still digitalisation
What is more, Ms. Kuma mentioned the trend towards a greater port-city nexus, and quoted a prediction that 68% of the population will live in cities in the next 20 years.
The port-city function will be expanded and more populations will live in a city that has a port
Future fuels
Commenting on future fuels, Carl Henrikson, General Manager, Shipping & Maritime Technology, Innovation and Digitalisation, Shell, said that to drive real change as an industry the three key areas of focus should be: future fuels, technology and policy, he explained.
Mr. Henrikson also stressed that costs will come down the more the maritime supply chain collaborates to achieve economies of scale. He added that the long-term cost of production of different fuels and the maturation needed to find long term emission reduction potential must be considered on a “complete end-to-end basis, not moving from one part of the supply chain to the other, it must be the entire system, not just the ships”.
Technology
Speaking about the needs of technology, Mr. Platten reminded those on the call of the proposed USD $5 billion IMO Maritime Research Fund (IMRF) that would use mandatory contributions from the world’s shipping companies to commission collaborative programmes for the applied research and development of zero carbon technologies to assist in achieving zero emission goals.
Green future
Sharing her opinion on zero emissions, Sally Sudworth, Global Head of Sustainability and Climate Change, said that such a change requires a change of what maritime uses to define value:
We are used to doing so based on financial return but we should look to broaden the choices we make every day to take into account carbon and sustainability in the round
She also noted opportunities to pilot innovative approaches in and around ports that other cities have already begun developing, such as floating developments like those in Amsterdam, that have utilities connections and can be protected from storms.
Green economy will mean job creation and green economic growth. There is huge opportunity for attracting green finance. There are a number of organisations that have floated green bonds on the market and been inundated for interest and buyers. There is an appetite for that sort of investment
Ms. Sudworth concluded.
