TECHNOLOGY VIEWPOINT

The urgency of the climate crisis demands high levels of ambition, and delivering on these ambitions requires far-reaching partnerships, says.

Mikko Kuosa of NAPA

Mikko Kuosa CEO, NAPA

A BLUEPRINT FOR COLLABORATION

We all know that we need to work together to decarbonise shipping. While the willingness to collaborate is undeniable, progress is often held back by a simple yet fundamental question: how do we make it happen in practice? Making collaborations work requires trust and a clear framework – and the foundation for both is transparent, reliable data.

If we take away one lesson for shipping from COP27, it is the maritime sector’s continued eagerness to collaborate on decarbonisation. A year after their launch, green shipping corridors are gaining momentum, with more than 20 initiatives underway, involving 110 stakeholders from all main shipping segments as well as governments.

Another flagship announcement was the commitment by Maersk, MAN Energy Solutions, the Getting to Zero Coalition and others to pursue cross-sector collaboration to ramp up the production of green hydrogen-based fuels in shipping.

Partnerships on this scale are essential to transform our industry, and the world will be watching as these projects progress from their current early stages towards their tangible implementation.

The push towards greater collaboration has also been felt outside the meeting halls of recent international meetings, with many in the industry promising to accelerate climate action through cooperation.

Yet translating high ambition and good intentions into practice has often been the tricky part. For many, the barrier is not knowing where to start, or how. Others may be hesitant to share information and resources for fear of putting their own organisational goals at risk.

The urgency of the climate crisis demands high levels of ambition, and delivering on these ambitions requires far-reaching partnerships.

We already know that we need to collaborate with stakeholders within and outside shipping to develop new fuels, clean technologies, engines, bunkering facilities, and global supply chains needed to scale

them up. However, the breadth of change required doesn’t stop there, and runs deep into the way we do business. We need to work together to tackle misaligned incentives and develop the right business models for this new era – where risk and benefits are shared, and no one is left behind.

Most importantly, the climate urgency calls for ambition to be translated into action – and for collaboration pledges to become concrete partnerships.

Data takes centre stage

Fundamentally, what shipping needs to collaborate is a clear framework that helps build and maintain trust, and makes partnerships work in practice with fair “rules of the game” for everyone involved.

Such framework relies on data and digital technology, which can play a critical role in making collaborations successful. First, they support transparency and facilitate informationsharing, which is essential to build and maintain trust.

Crucially, a data-based approach also brings clarity and helps build confidence on what new projects will look like in reality, and their implications for the different stakeholders involved. Solid data can build an objective picture of actions and progress by simulating different scenarios, to accurately measure the costs and benefits of joining any new collaborative project.

This adds predictability not only to the technological aspects of a project, but also helps test out the operational environment, which is so important to businesses’ decision-making. When done right, collaboration is a win-win situation, and data can be used to demonstrate when that will be the case.

The good news is that using data to make collaborations successful is more than a theoretical prospect. Digital platforms are already at play across the sector, supporting partnerships that drive decarbonisation from shipyards to operations at sea. Here’s how.

Collaboration can tackle some of the hardest problems that currently stand in the way of emissions reductions. A good example is the Blue Visby solution, a multilateral platform where companies agree on a common framework to eliminate the wasteful practice of “sail fast, then wait” – and reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 15%.

Current contractual frameworks too often incentivise ships to sail at speed across oceans, increasing their emissions exponentially, only to wait outside congested ports for extended periods, burning even more fuel. Solving this complex problem requires two things: a new model that removes these split incentives, and the digital technology to make an alternative business model work in practice.

Blue Visby does both. It introduces an innovative contractual framework where charterers, ship owners and cargo owners share the risks and rewards of using the solution. And it takes it from concept to reality by using state-of-art digital technology to create a dynamic “queuing system” that optimises and staggers arrival times for groups of vessels travelling to the same port. This enables ships to slow down, cut their emissions, and arrive one after the other without losing a competitive advantage, as the algorithm maintains their order of arrival as if they had sailed independently.

By doing so, Blue Visby delivers most of the benefits of “just-in-time” arrivals without most of the problems. It shows how shipping companies can come together to reduce their emissions by optimising their arrivals, without requiring a complex alignment of stakeholders on the port side.

It goes without saying that the key to Blue Visby’s success is the partners’ willingness to take action to reduce their emissions and openness to look for new ways of tackling inefficiencies. But what brings them together in an effective partnership is digital technology.

Powered by NAPA software, the algorithm assigns a target arrival time for each vessel in a way that is fair, neutral, transparent, and trusted by all participating companies. It also addresses concerns about the sharing of sensitive information, as it only requires AIS data that is already publicly available.

Enhanced collaboration

Data analysis shows that the impact of Blue Visby on commercial performance is minimal, as the speed reduction would be as little as one knot on average. However, the potential collective impact on the environment is significant. The Blue Visby Consortium estimates that the solution has the potential to reduce the carbon footprint of the global shipping fleet by approximately 60m tonnes of CO2 per year if it were applied globally across all shipping segments that the solution addresses – which is larger than the total emissions of an entire country like Norway.

Digital technologies also support enhanced collaboration within companies themselves. For instance, they enable crews and shoreside teams to work together more closely to optimise voyages to reduce emissions, while maintaining safety at all times.

This is particularly important as shipping deploys a range of new fuels and technologies, such as wind

propulsion, batteries and carbon capture. As well as changing how a vessel operates, these systems impact a ship’s safety and stability profile. Careful planning is required ahead of their deployment, and constant decision-making is needed once they are installed on board.

This calls for enhanced collaboration and communication between seafarers on board and fleet operations centres on shore, so that they can monitor dayto-day operations, proactively address risks, and make the best possible decisions together to optimise energy efficiency without ever compromising safety. Digital tools are making this a reality.

Using 3D models together with realtime data delivered through the cloud, shoreside teams can monitor a number of variables that may affect a vessel’s stability and energy efficiency, such as stability and loading of cargo, bunkers, or ballast, and weather conditions.

As a result, they can better support seafarers on board with stability calculations, route planning and voyage optimisation, and flag any potential risks before they ever become a problem.

Digital technology also helps model the impact of different measures to optimise operations, placing “safe boundaries” for decision-making. For example, with deadweight management, NAPA stability software helps crews adjust margins on fuel bunkering, ballast water and trim to help reduce fuel consumption and emissions, while maintaining ship stability and safety.

Furthermore, the same software can help decisionmakers identify and close safety and efficiency gaps on their fleets, helping teams work together to improve their performance and ensure compliance with environmental regulation.

Partnerships for new designs

Lesser known, but just as essential, is the role of collaboration in helping design the next generation of greener vessels, integrating new fuels and technologies.

The ship design process is inherently a collaborative one, involving multiple stakeholders, including naval engineers, owners, sub-contractors, and classification societies. As shipyards are asked to innovate at an unprecedented speed, these stakeholders need the right tools to be able to communicate efficiently.

The foundation of this greater collaboration is made from intelligent 3D models and web-based informationsharing platforms, which provide a common software base to share design details, feedback and updates.

NAPA Viewer, for example, gives stakeholders access to all the information they need, while also ensuring that the intellectual property rights of each party are protected.

In practice, this enables teams to test new approaches more easily, implement changes seamlessly, and simulate how new features will impact the integrity, stability and efficiency of the global structure.

Quick design iterations and comprehensive analyses are particularly important for innovative designs, and digital platforms help all parties explore new “technological territories” together, enabling them to make the most of time and resources to deliver the best possible designs.

This is only the beginning. Moving forward, we hope that collaboration will enable more operational data to be fed back to shipyards, where it can provide formidable insights to optimise the future fleet.

This will rely on companies’ willingness to share more data on how their vessels perform once at sea, which shipyards can then use to iterate and improve their concepts, accelerating the development of greener designs that can benefit the entire industry, and the planet.

We have the tools we need to translate collaboration pledges into successful partnerships across the maritime sector, from a ship’s initial design stages to its operations at sea. There is no reason for a lack of ambition – or action.