Op-Ed: Proactive collaboration needed for clean technology

Sean McLaughlin, Strategy Consultant, Houlder

To find out more about how companies feel about clean technology in maritime, Houlder recently undertook a qualitative survey of senior executives from large and small shipowners across the container, tanker, bulk, cruise and ferry sectors. They all agreed on one thing, says Sean McLaughlin, strategy consultant for Houlder.

Every senior industry player that Houlder interviewed for its Clean technology and the decarbonization challenge whitepaper confirmed that there is a willingness amongst shipping companies to collaborate on projects that will enable the uptake of new clean technology.

Participants did however feel that a more proactive, more innovative approach is needed, and our research unearthed two key areas for improvement: collaboration between owners and clean technology providers, as well as collaboration between owners themselves. Our conversations with shipowners underlined that reliance on ad hoc collaboration between shipowners, and between technology companies and owners is currently a major barrier to the decarbonization of shipping.

Several interviewees identified a lack of good quality and relevant operating data as a key barrier to the uptake of clean technology. There is also a perceived shortage of independent corroboration for the claims made by some technology vendors. While the equipment may perform as the manufacturer intended, it does not always deliver the savings claimed and sometimes comes with a significant increase in OPEX. None of the participants accused technology providers of suggesting deliberately misleading results but reflected that the data in a brochure will inevitably relate to another ship.

As for collaboration between shipowners, it’s not reasonable to expect shipping companies to simply drop their competitive aims. As one executive we interviewed said: “Shipowners collectively need to try out the new technologies and bring the cost down. But you need to make sure you don’t pay too big a penalty yourself and everyone else gets the reward.” Another added: “We need a mechanism to easily come together and find the right partners.”

Stepping up to the decarbonization challenge means recognizing that in many cases this is about revolution and new paradigms, rather than the slow evolution that shipping has been used to in the past. As one executive we interviewed pointed out: “This is our generation’s biggest challenge.”

Houlder recognizes the need to be bold; to avoid being suffocated by traditional ways of working, and a ‘that’s how we’ve always done it’ mindset. We believe that, industry-wide, there is a need for more proactive, independent convenors to facilitate project collaboration and the sharing of data on new clean technologies. They can initiate and drive projects, acting as a central black box, bringing sensitive information together to paint the full picture whilst protecting the confidentiality of the data owners. They can also help shipowners share the cost of trialing a new technology whilst giving them all access to the benefits.

Green corridors are one way of providing a powerful environment for collaboration along supply chains, and there are some great examples of other collaborative approaches in action today. The large-scale initiatives such as the Poseidon Principles, a global framework for assessing and disclosing the climate alignment of financial institutions’ shipping portfolios, and the Getting to Zero Coalition, a powerful alliance of more than 200 organizations within the maritime, energy, infrastructure and finance sectors, are great examples of organizations that set the bar and drive change, but they aren’t enough.

Shipping needs practical activity which will see new technologies and approaches developed and tested in a real-world environment. It is not enough for us all to understand “why” we need to find ways of working together, we must also identify “how.”

It is apparent from all our conversations with owners that collaboration will be critical to achieving rapid, fundamental change. What we need is for organizations to be innovative and pragmatic in the way they seek to make collaboration a reality.