Vincent Clerc: I'm a CEO at one of the world's biggest shipping and logistics companies. Here's how my industry can go green
ordering what will be the world’s first container vessels running on carbon-neutral “green“ methanol—the first scalable carbon-neutral solution available for such ships—among the milestones.companies and shipowners to invest in in carbon-neutral vessels
, and industry expectations are for this to not only continue in 2022, but to accelerate. Companies are waking up to the fact that progress is needed now and new solutions must be implemented on all aspects of the business. This is illustrated by the fact that the vast majority of container lines now stand firmly behind a net-zero target of, at the latest, 2050.
Shipping has long been caught up in a chicken-and-egg situation. No investment in vessels that can sail on carbon-neutral fuels has meant no investment in the development of carbon-neutral fuels and vice versa. With this vicious cycle broken and new, carbon-neutral vessels expected to hit the waters starting in 2023, the market for green shipping fuels is opening up.
To sustain the newfound momentum, there are important regulatory components that must shape up. This past year has made it quite clear that the market is currently what drives developments in the area of decarbonization of shipping. Aside from the first investments in carbon-neutral vessels, this was most clearly demonstrated by a coalition of leading global retailers including