Low Carbon Marine Transport Innovations & Startups Report

Comprehensive Showcase of Global Low Carbon Marine Transport Innovations & Startups

From CLIMAFIX, the leader in climate innovation intelligence

Low Carbon Marine Transport Introduction:

Over 10 billion tons of goods are transported by ship each year. About 90% of the world’s goods are transported by sea, with over 70% as containerized cargo. Such is the dominance of shipping for commercial and industrial logistics.

Shipping contributes about 3% of total CO₂ emissions and there is a clear realisation among all the industry players that they need to bring down these emissions significantly within a reasonable period.

Many avenues are available for shipping decarbonization, with some of them (like LNG-powered ships) already commercialised. Increasing the energy efficiency of the ship’s engines and powertrain could provide reasonable CO₂ emissions reductions. Significant efforts and investments can be expected for these two decarbonization opportunities.

Running ships on biofuels (bio-methanol or biodiesel) is another opportunity, though these efforts are only in the pilot stages as of 2021. Given that a large ship could carry a massive 3 million gallons of fuel (about 9000 tons), the use of biofuels for shipping could pose challenges in terms of the availability of large volumes of biofuels. Electrification of shipping will face challenges similar to the one that the aviation sector faces – that of low battery energy density.

For the 2020-2030 period, some of the impactful innovations in this sector will be around route planning & fleet optimization, the use of biofuels, and wind-powered ships, and the use of digital technologies for monitoring and optimizing fuel consumption.

The Low Carbon Marine Transport Innovations & Startups Report provides insights on the following: