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DECARBONISATION
For shipowners and operators, the requirement to decarbonise is becoming increasingly urgent, as Søren Meyer, CEO of ZeroNorth, explains
ACTIONABLE DATA WILL BE CRITICAL
Søren Meyer CEO, ZeroNorth
On a wide scale, our industry must successfully implement a plan to decarbonise operations in line with regulations and societal ambitions. To compound the scale of the challenge, the roadmap that owners and operators set for themselves – and the solutions they choose - must be profitable, trustworthy and flexible enough to respond to further upcoming changes. However, although there are exciting developments in future and low carbon fuels on the horizon, the sector is currently absent of these solutions at a scale that will enable it to significantly reduce emissions. In short, the need to decarbonise – and to be able to do this profitably – is a historic challenge for a sector used to commodity fuels and a traditional way of operating. It’s clear that the challenges of cutting emissions will require a combination of clean technologies, alternative zero-carbon fuels and, as is becoming increasingly apparent, a more intelligent use of data and technology. This is because data and technology
C L E A N S H I P P I N G INTERNATIONAL – Winter 2021
can help unlock and underpin more intelligent decision-making; an immediately achievable first step towards realising greater sustainability outcomes that can be taken today. Taking a step back for a moment, it’s important to reflect on the huge cost increases that future fuels will bring to ship operations. Given the cost increases of these fuels, the only way that they can be realistically used is by reducing fuel consumption. In this, digital technologies have a key role to play.
ENABLING THE FUTURE FUELS TRANSITION
Shipping now has access to a large well of data, spanning vessel performance, weather, market rates, fuel prices and more. This data is a huge asset for decision-making; if it can be turned into actions that transparently reflect CO2 and dollar upsides. But while the shipping industry’s data resource may be vast, it is widely underutilised and the ability to unlock efficiencies,
