Climate Change & Digitalisation
Climate Change
Several studies over the years have documented that green-house-gas emissions from shipping is increasing. The latest IMO GHG Study concluded that the total greenhouse gas emissions from shipping rose about 10% from 2012 to 2018. The shipping volumes have increased more than the GHG-emissions proving that the effort the industry have done to improve carbon intensity and energy efficiency have a positive effect. The carbon intensity has improved due to larger ships, technical innovation, operational improvements and slow steaming.
GHG-emissions are what matter to temperature rise, these are not on track and the growth in shipping volumes will increase the pressure to accelerate decarbonisation. Shipping is one of the most difficult industries to make climate neutral because it is a capital-intensive with large, long-life assets, thin margins and a high-dependence on a global supply of energy-dense fuels. Decarbonisation will be slow and regulations, CO2-tax and similar are most likely needed to meet the Paris Agreement and the IMO Ambition.
Most of the 52,000 ships world wide will still be in operation in 2030. Energy Efficiency is therefore a key to meet the IMO’s 2030 ambition as well as a fundamental shift in fuel.
The transition to carbon neutral shipping is a long-term effort and a variety of operational and asset investment strategies need to be considered and there will be market opportunities as well as threats in decarbonisation of shipping – Some will win and some will loose! Complex choices lie ahead in navigating this change – and every company should have their unique climate change strategy and roadmap.
- Energy efficiency is a foundation regardless of strategy and technology and can only be achieved with
- Easy access to performance data of high quality
- Organisation capabilities and processes to analyse performance data and make fact based decisions
- Effective implementation of decisions
- Access to high quality performance data is also a must for transparency towards charterers, governments, financers, and others
Contact us to learn more of how we can assist with energy efficiency and decarbonisation!
Digitalisation
The cost and complexity of deep-sea communications has acted as a brake on utilisation of digital technologies in shipping. What has developed is a closed, domain-specific, comparatively expensive set of processes and solutions, provided by a huge range of vendors, all keen to lock in their customers.
Falling costs and improved maritime connectivity have finally allowed the ship real-time connection to the rest of the business operation. This is a fundamental enabler for the digital transformation shipping and maritime companies must undergo. However, most of the shipping companies are small and have less than 20 ships. Installing complex data software and IT systems on ships and forming land-based control centres requires large scale coordination that most shipowners have no time or ability to develop. These companies need a granular approach with solutions that solve specific problems.
A lot of buss-words like ”big-data, digital twin, smart ship, smart operations” are frequently used while the core of a digital transformation strategy is to decide which problems to solve or what to improve. Examples:
- Make better decisions. Use real time data to make informed decisions
- Perform analysis. Utilise data to monitor performance, continuous learning and improvements
- Reduce workload. Utilise sensor data, re-engineer processes, automatic logs and reporting
- Remote operations. Inspections, audits, trouble shooting, commissioning and learning are viable examples of remote operations.
- Sell data to others. Data collected have value to others
Covid-19 has been a catalyst to remote operations. Suddenly, audits, inspections, commissioning and trouble shooting had to be done from remote. It works, but the processes and technologies are not streamlined for efficient and effective remote operations and may add additional burden to the ever growing administration tasks.
Technology is a fundamental enabler for the digital transformation, but the transition has to be managed and implemented by people. Each company has to set their own ambition, decide which problems to solve, the best solutions and ensure successful implementation.
Contact us to learn more of how we can assist with the digital transformation!