The North’s journey to becoming a world player in a zero-emissions future

Today we are celebrating World Maritime Day 2022. The World Maritime theme for 2022 is “New technologies for greener shipping”. This theme reflects the need to support a green transition of the maritime sector into a sustainable future.

In the Northern Netherlands, the maritime sector is pooling its knowledge and expertise in the “Green Maritime Coalition” to realize the technology needed for ‘green’ shipping and digitalised shipbuilding. The “Green Maritime Coalition”, founded on the initiative of the Groninger Maritime Board and Conoship International, wants to lead the way in the transition to large-scale emission-free shipping.

Reducing 10 million tons of CO₂ per years

The northern shipbuilding industry could contribute to a CO₂ reduction of up to 10 million tons per year in short sea shipping before 2030. And many times over in deep-sea shipping through technology that’s still in development.

Committing to the construction of zero-emission ships will not only result in job retention for the region but also provide thousands of new jobs. These are some of the elements of the action plan of the Green Maritime Coalition.

Objectives Green maritime coalition

The Green Maritime Coalition (GMC) was established with the following objectives in mind:

• Innovative Industry Development in the Northern Netherlands: developing new technologies for emission-free shipping, as well as for related industrial activities for building and supplying the equipment and installations for ships from existing industrial sectors. This objective makes the most of opportunities within the energy transition.

• Maintaining and structurally expanding employment in the most important sector of the Northern Netherlands manufacturing industry: the maritime industry.

• Accelerating emission-free shipping by offering society the opportunity to build the first “green” ships now, based on existing knowledge, and kickstart the building process and industrial activities required for a large fleet of emission-free ships.

Cooperation between technology developers, builders, shipping companies, knowledge institutes, educational institutes, and governments is essential to realize these developments. Combined with the digitalization of the building processes, it would make the future emission-free ships very competitive in the Northern Netherlands.

 

Learn more about the green projects we are working on and the actions we are taking together with the Northern Dutch Maritime industry to become a global player Green Ships.