How to Decarbonize your Company
A roadmap to making your company carbon neutral
Perhaps it is your client asking you to provide a sustainability plan or roadmap.
Perhaps it is your boss.
Perhaps it is you.
Whatever your motives, it is hard to determine what you can do as a company working in the maritime industry to ‘become more sustainable’. Even harder is how you actually going to achieve those goals, or who is going to do this. There is notoriously little help available in the maritime industry when it comes to these matters, so where do you start?
You can start here.
We help you by providing an 8 step how-to-guide to develop your company’s own decarbonization strategy. We have also included templates of roadmaps and stories of companies who have done so in the past, which are free for you to use. If you need a customized roadmap or more help in setting things up, feel free to contact us by Talking to an Expert.
8 Steps to a Carbon Neutral Company
(in a not-too-strict order)
+ Step 1. Find a Hero
Who will be the one transforming you company? It could be you!
It is an absolute necessity to have a person act as the catalyst of change. You need someone with true grit, passion, a sense of curiosity and a steady dose of patience who believes a carbon neutral company is the right thing to do. Without such a dedicated person, it will become very hard for your company to change.
Without such a person, change might come in the form of clients demanding you become carbon neutral, or rules and regulations that will enforce you to do something you do not want. You will become a part of the laggers and complainers, those who do not want to change. And we know that those who are unwilling to change, are most often the losers. Just look at recent history: Kodak and Nokia are the perfect examples to show that change will come. You can be the one to change history (for your company). And of course, feel free to ask us for help!
“Where does change start anyway? You don’t have to be a professor to understand that this is the wrong question. Change can start anywhere.”
+ Step 2. Find a Guide
Who will guide the hero and assist him by providing knowledge, insights and resources?
Every hero needs a guide. Someone to help him or her navigate through treacherous waters and dangerous storms. For the moment we will assume you - the reader - will be the hero of your company.
Your guide needs to be a someone high-up in the management team, preferably the highest up. That would be your CEO or better yet, the owner. If you do not have such persons on-board, look for others authority figures within your company who are willing to back you up. Look for the ones who whisper in the ears of those with power, the 'consiglieres', who can 'convert the management team from within'. This might require a great deal of politics and patience, which can be frustrating at times. Remember that when it comes to sustainability and 'making a better world for our children', you have the moral highground. Use this to evoke support throughout the organization.
In order to convert those in charge, feel free to use our help, our tools or even our paid services to show them it is not as hard as they might think. Be mindfull however that no amount of statistics, feasibility studies or arguments can convert non-believers. True motivation to change needs to come from within, as cliche as that might sound. Get in touch with us to discuss which incentives might help you present your case.
Once you have garnered support from those who have the power (and budget) to change, you are ready to start.
+ Step 3. Determine your footprint
Calculate your carbon footprint and determine financial resources available.
The first thing you need to do, is to determine the carbon footprint of your company and assets. This is often referred to as "what is material for you". There are plenty of guidelines and calculators online who can help you with this, though most of these aren't dedicated to companies in the marine and offshore industry. That's our specialty we can help you with.
From our experience, at least 95% of all Scope 1 emissions for a ship-owning company is due to combustion of fuel on-board the vessels. Scope 1 emissions refer to emissions a company has direct control of. So what about Scope II and III emissions?
Our advice to you is to focus. For the moment, we propose to invest your time and resources into decarbonizing your vessels only, that would be scope I emissions only.
This makes it more straightforward to determine your footprint, as it can easily be determined by multipling your (total) fuel consumption times the emission factor of your fuel. Click here to use our free tool that can do this for you. In case you want more help, including help on scope II and III emissions, feel free to Talk to an Expert and get help.
Once you have made an indication of your scope I emissions, you can proceed to the next level.
+ Step 4. Set the ambition
Do you want to fully remove all emissions and become zero emissions or is carbon neutral enough? What is stopping you from achieving this goal?
You want to become 'more sustainable'. That much is clear. But what exactly does that mean for your company? Is it enough to simply offset carbon emissions and buy credits? Or do you need to inset emissions? Or are you willing to go full zero emissions or even further, negative emissions like Microsoft? These questions are hard to answer and dependent on your company, especially on the ones in charge.
What's more, true sustainability is more than simply being carbon neutral. It is about the balance between people, planet and profit, which are all connected. We have to start somewhere though. But where?
We propose you start with carbon neutrality. Why? It is tangible, you can measure it, and you can - if done right - make money out of it.
In case you want to start with carbon neutrality, which options do you have to get there? Basically there are four options:
- Offset Emissions
- Inset Emissions
- Zero Emissions
- Carbon Negative
Within these options, there are several pathways to get there, pending how much of a hurry you have.
1. Fastest - Leading the charge
You do not have time to wait. You want to be sustainable now.
2. Cheapest - Limited resources, maximum drive
If you do not have the (financial) resources to fund your sustainable ambitions, you need to be smart about it.
3. Wait - Follow the crowd
You can of course decide that it is all too difficult, lean back and do nothing. As a minimum effort, you could learn the best practices from others, await rules and regulations, and focus on simply complying. In that case, your journey ends here.
Which option you choose is op to you. Be aware that the last option - do nothing - is certainly not the cheapest, nor the least dangerous! Again, history is full of companies who started following instead of leading (again, Kodak, Nokia). If you decide to simply wait and do nothing, rules and regulations from IMO, EU or class will catch up and you might eventually end up paying more.
For example, shore power will likely be mandatory in Europe by 2030. Are you going to wait for 2029 to convert your vessel, or are you going to do it now while you can still get subsidies and you can purchase our feasibility studies for €299 per report?
Again, it is up to you to decide what you want to achieve. Once you have set this ambition, all you need to do is determine how to get there.
+ Step 5. Determine your strategy
How can you become carbon neutral? Which technologies can be used?
Most companies in the maritime and offshore industry are bound by long-term commitments and assets that have a long period of depreciation. Combined with the fact that for most of these assets, converting to zero-emission technologies is costly if at all possible, this makes become carbon neutral a daunting task.
To help you overcome this challenge, we have developed the Decarbonzer. Within 2 minutes, you receive this tool free to use insights on which carbon reduction measure or technology suits your vessel or your company best, how it works and most importantly - how much it will cost you.
Based on these insights, you have the option to purchase a premium version which includes in-depth analyses on your vessel, one hour of support and elaboration on your vessel and your own version of the tool which you can customize to suit your needs and assumptions. This will save you months, if not years of time and effort and will drastically speed up your sustainable journey. Of course, in case this is not something you fancy, you are free to use the insights and other freemium tools on the Sustainable Ships platform at your choosing!
The last stap you need to do once your battle plan is made, is to rally the troops.
+ Step 6. Rally the troops
Who will help you do it?
At this point, you have gathered a mandate from your management, received guides and insights from Sustainable Ships, collected the necessary resources, defined a clear ambition and made a strategy achieve the ambition. But, as with any hero, you cannot do it alone. You need a team. A Robin to you being Batman.
Depending on the size of your company, it is recommended to never exceed the "soccer-team size" of 12 people for your sustainability team. More people are usually neither helpful nor necessery. With these people, you must engage as many if not all of your colleagues. What do we mean by that?
You need to found a 'sustainability community' within your company.
People want, no need to belong to a community where they are surrounded by like-minded people. By setting up a community, you leverage them to work for the common cause of sustainability throughout the entire company.
Every organization in the world has people who are willing to invest time and thought into making the company more sustainable. Even with busy agendas and projects, there are always those who are willing to go the distance. All you need to do is find them and give them the tools to make their own job, department or asset more sustainable.
Setting up a community is no small feat and we would be happy to give you the guidelines to create one. Feel free to reach out to us and ask for help by Talking to an Expert.
Once the community is set up, there is only one thing left to do. Just do it.
+ Step 7. Do it
Everything is set in place. All that remains is actually doing the work. That should be a piece of cake, right?
Not necessarily.
You will encounter new barriers, challenges, or those unwilling to change. This can be a frustrating process which requires a lot of patience and not all of you will see through. Don't worry. Just remember that you are not alone. There are plenty of others like you, which we are happy to connect you with. Feel free to use the Sustainable Ships helpdesk at any time you feel lost or confused.
This could be the last step before you are 'a sustainable company', if it wasn't for the fact that we like to ask you one more thing.
+ Step 8. Learn, improve and share your experience
What best practices and lessons learned can you share with others?
You will learn along the way that some things work, and some things do not. Sharing your insights might mean you can help another partner in the maritime industry achieve their goals faster, or it could get you in touch with potential future employees.
It not only means you have to share what works for you. It might also mean you have to share what does not. Why?
We learn by failing. Thus, we need to share our failures.
Just as the maritime industry shares safety incidents, we should not shy away from sharing sustainability incidents. Or as Bob Ross calls them: "happy little accidents".
At Sustainable Ships we believe strongly in sharing our experiences and learning from each other. That includes learning from each other's mistakes. That is why we ask you to share your experiences, so that we might be able to expand upon your knowledge and apply the lessons you learned to others. Collaboration is one of our three values that we showcase by means of sharing.
We believe that there is no commercial advantage in not sharing our lessons. We believe in reciprocity. Everyone in the maritime industry will need to figure out for themselves how to become a sustainable company, how to decarbonize their own special vessels and how to educate their crews. By sharing what works, and what doesn't, we create win-win scenarios and new opportunities for business.
For example, the shore power project in the Calandkanaal by Heerema, Eneco and Port of Rotterdam not only ensured the reduction of almost 15.000 [mT] of carbon emissions annually. It also opened up business cases never thought about by Eneco and Port of Rotterdam, which now seem to lead to millions in investment opportunity.
By sharing your experiences you might connect to just the right person from the industry you needed to solve your issue, creating whole new kinds of business you never thought possible.
Examples of Sustainable Roadmaps
Learn from other companies.
References & More Stories
MIT Sloan Management Review - Sustainability Lessons from the Front Lines