The following insight brief provides an overview of the key findings from the Future Maritime Leaders 2023 essay competition, offers detailed insights into the participation statistics, and highlights the emerging core ideas. Emphasising the significance of the essays, this analysis aims to illuminate the diverse perspectives and innovative concepts presented by participants.

Following the identification of iron ore shipping routes between Western Australia and East Asia as high-potential candidates for establishing a green shipping corridor powered by zero or near-zero carbon ammonia, a task force of 15 industry representatives4 from across the value chain has convened under the Getting to Zero Coalition to explore the implementation of the corridor. Over the past year, the group has undertaken several activities to support its development.

This insight brief is the first of two that focus on the interaction between voluntary book-and-claim-enabled activities, which are driven by individual corporate willingness to reduce emissions, and compliance activities, which are driven by regulation and binding emissions reduction targets.

In this insight brief, we argue that more countries can support international shipping’s transition to zero emissions, that the options for meaningful contributions by governments are plentiful, and that the policy pathway for each country is determined by a combination of the nation’s strengths, ambitions, and current and envisioned place in the global shipping ecosystem.

With the International Maritime Organisation’s (IMO) Revised Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Strategy adopted in July 2023, this Brief dives deeper into the mid-term measures, including an economic and technical measure, which are currently under development to ensure delivering on the Strategy.

In recent years, momentum towards zero-emission shipping has been building, with maritime leaders pioneering zero-emission technologies and calling for regulatory frameworks.

As members of the newly formed Future Maritime Leaders Network, we are deeply invested in improving the maritime industry for the workforce of tomorrow. To that end, we have identified three needs that we believe require the focused attention and action of today’s industry leaders.

This year’s essay competition asked young people from across the globe to reflect on what an inclusive transition to a sustainable maritime industry means to them. Vladimir Zorić from Montenegrin proposes the Worldwide Crew Pool (WCP) to build a collaborative way of working amongst different companies and stakeholders through a centralised system that would manage Fleet Personnel processes of all shipping companies under a single umbrella, while minimising the impact from carbon emissions. This would happen through the establishment of crewing and training centers worldwide, which would particularly benefit developing countries, while at the same time aiming to decrease the usage of air travel.

This year’s essay competition asked young people from across the globe to reflect on what an inclusive transition to a sustainable maritime industry means to them. Japanese essay competition winner Saki Inoue argues for 3 main points which can support the sustainable revolution: seafarers as sustainability boosters, maritime education and training reform, and additional support for developing countries.