ABS has held a Sustainability Summit, at which it launched the seventh edition of its annual sustainability outlook report, which concludes that, despite progress on carbon intensity, shipping’s absolute emissions continue to climb.
ABS Chairman and CEO Christopher J Wiernicki said: “Shipping and the IMO are on different trajectories. There is no clear pathway for green fuel availability and scalability and infrastructure support. LNG and biofuels are mission critical to any success and should not be overlooked, over penalised or discarded in the net zero regulation. Quite frankly, achieving net zero for shipping by 2050 looks like a wildcard. The industry needs a framework but we need one that marries ambition with reality. The mechanics need to be thought through. Right now, we are not where we need to be. Emissions remain 121% above the 2008 baseline, compliance costs are compounding, and the signals shaping investment – regulation, fuel pricing, penalties, availability, scalability – are moving at different speeds. The IMO needs to take a timeout. We need to get this right.”
The 2025 ABS Sustainability Outlook, Beyond the Horizon: Vision Meets Reality, highlights the sharply increasing cost of compliance, modelling how a typical vessel trading within the EU could see daily operating costs increase from about US$ 15,000 in 2028 to around US$ 45,000 by 2035. Meanwhile, LNG is over-penalised in the early 2030s although it underpins blue fuels, keeps hard-to-abate segments compliant, and buys time for zero-carbon fuels, provided methane slip is addressed and pathways to /e-LNG are opened.
Wiernicki continued: “Maritime decarbonisation is a three-part calculus: 70% fuel selection, 15% energy efficiency, and 15%performance optimisation. That 30% beyond fuel is where software plays a pivotal role and, given the current scarcity of green and blue fuel variants globally, is where the most immediate and scalable gains can be achieved. Getting closer to the 2030s, we need to protect the bridge, which is LNG with methane-slip controls and credible /e-LNG pathways, to extend the runway, which is energy efficiency technologies and onboard carbon capture, to cut well to wake emissions and prepare the endgame: nuclear and zero carbon fuels when they are safe, insurable and investible at scale.”
The Outlook, a compilation of ABS research and advanced analysis of progress with respect to sustainability challenges at sea and the readiness of the various solutions, highlights both the important bridging role of energy efficiency technologies and an impending retrofit capacity crunch at shipyards. Finally, the Outlook acknowledges the game-changing potential of nuclear propulsion technology beyond 2035.
The 2025 ABS Sustainability Outlook, Beyond the Horizon: Vision Meets Reality is available for download here.
