In the Northern Netherlands, the maritime sector is pooling its knowledge and expertise in the Green Maritime Coalition to realise 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. The northern Dutch shipbuilding industry believes it could contribute to a CO₂ reduction of up to 10m t/yr in short sea shipping before 2030. And many times over in deep-sea shipping through technology that is still in development.
Committing to the construction of zero-emission ships is believed to not only result in job retention for the region but also provide thousands of new jobs.
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.
