Shipowners urged to collaborate to decarbonise

A survey of shipowners has found that ad hoc collaboration between ship owners and technology companies is a major barrier to decarbonising shipping.

The design and engineering consultancy, Houlder, collected owner feedback from the container, tanker, bulk, cruise and ferry sectors.

Houlder says that every senior industry player that was interviewed confirmed a willingness to collaborate and that it was critical for rapid change. Collaboration was found to be less evident in practice as owners are safeguarding competitive advantage.

Two core areas were identified for improvement: collaboration between owners themselves, and between the owners and technology companies.

A lack of good quality and relevant operating data was identified as a barrier to 'clean' technology. Participants were said to reflect that brochure data will inevitably relate to another ship. Accordingly, the results and unintended consequences of any technology intervention were apparently needed to be recognised as a retrospective design change.

Respondents also said that smaller and medium shipowners struggle to invest for R&D and trialling, and so need partners to access the knowledge and resources to enable change.