Shell Ventures invests in Value Group

Dutch sustainability firm Value Group, which brings together sister companies Value Maritime and Value Carbon, revealed that Shell Ventures has joined Value Group’s investor base to accelerate and expand Value Group’s carbon capture utilisation and storage strategy.

Shell Ventures, the corporate venture capital arm of Shell, supports companies in their early, scale and growth phases, providing investments that stimulate the development of new technologies and disruptive business models to lower emissions and accelerate the energy transition.

Value Maritime is the developer and installer of one of the first commercially viable hybrid CO₂ capture and exhaust gas cleaning systems (Filtree).

The system cleans sulphur, ultra-fine particulate matter and CO₂ from ships’ exhaust emissions as well as oil residue and particulate matter from the vessels’ washing water. As a result, the Filtree System supports both the lowering of CO₂ emissions and a reduction of acidification of seawater.

The Filtree System also features an integrated carbon capture feature that allows ships to store the CO₂ they collect onboard in dedicated fixed tanks or non-fixed battery containers. These onboard storage facilities are filled with CO₂, which can then be sustainably offloaded in port for re-use or storage elsewhere.

Earlier this year, Value Maritime announced the launch of a sister company, Value Carbon. With this, the Value Group expanded its role with a focus on the entire process, from carbon capture to landside utilisation and/or storage.

With Shell Ventures’ support, Value Group aims to accelerate its strategy throughout the maritime value chain, including the expansion of CO₂ offtake and monetisation of opportunities globally.

“We are very excited with this new development. Shell Ventures will support us in many ways that will help our strategy moving forward and contribute to our development. The participation of Shell Ventures serves as confirmation that we are on the right path and is a huge compliment for our team,” Value Group Co-Founder and Director Maarten Lodewijks says.

“We are dedicated to decarbonising shipping across the value chain from sustainable technology, equipment, installation and capturing with our Filtree and Carbon Capture system to reliable offtake and certification. This is an important milestone for our company and we look forward to building on it. Together with our key shareholders like Shell, our partners and clients and in cooperation with governmental and institutional bodies, we can significantly speed up the decarbonisation process.”

“This investment aligns with Shell’s aim to support the development of solutions that can help industries decarbonize, as part of our focus on delivering more value with less emissions. Shipping is a notoriously hard-to-abate sector where volumes have doubled over the last couple of decades and the upward trend is expected to continue,” Shell Ventures’ Chief Investment Officer Robert Linck says.

“Value Group’s promising solution is one of the first on the market that provides the maritime industry with a viable solution for carbon capture today. We are proud to be joining their journey and look forward to supporting them as they expand their activities with shipowners and operators across the globe to lower emissions.”