SSI’s research program to empower business leaders with ‘actionable insights’

The Sustainable Shipping Initiative (SSI) has launched its State of Sustainable Shipping (SoSS) program, bankrolled by Lloyd’s Register Foundation.

Expanding on the Roadmap to a Sustainable Shipping Industry, the SoSS program hones in on six crucial vision areas: Oceans, Communities, People, Transparency, Finance, and Energy.

The SoSS program plans to use digital, research, and strategic foresight methods to track and challenge the maritime industry’s sustainability performance. The aim is to speed up progress by sharing knowledge, identifying transformative pathways, and enabling more effective decision-making by maritime value chain actors.

As explained by SSU, the program is expected to amplify the importance of the Roadmap, co-created with industry input, sets tangible milestones for a sustainable maritime sector in the decades to come.

“The Sustainable Shipping Initiative has a track record of inspiring and influencing maritime transformation, being an early mover on identifying and engaging emerging sustainability issues. With the support of Lloyd’s Register Foundation, the State of Sustainable Shipping (SoSS) programme will continue to catalyse change by providing actionable insights to business decision-makers navigating their sustainability journey,” Ram Ganesh Kamatham, Project Manager at the Sustainable Shipping Initiative, said.

“In order to accelerate shipping’s progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals, we need to provide organizations with the information they need to mitigate safety and sustainability threats. The Sustainable Shipping Initiative is providing unrivalled leadership in defining sustainable shipping, and through this new partnership and other research projects, we’re helping create a systematic plan towards achieving it,” Olivia Swift, Senior Programme Manager at Lloyd’s Register Foundation, said.

Access to the data from the program is expected to enable maritime stakeholders to prioritize investments effectively and encourage systemic change on the most pressing safety and sustainability issues facing the international shipping community.

This initiative follows previous funding from the Engineering X Safer End of Engineered Life program, a partnership between the Royal Academy of Engineering and Lloyd’s Register Foundation. The program supported the Ship Recycling Transparency Initiative and the SEAFAIRER roundtable in 2020 and 2022, respectively. Recent joint efforts include co-hosting a COP28 side event titled ‘Staying on Course for 1.5: Africa’s Role in Accelerating Shipping’s Green Transition’ and partnering on an analysis with LR Maritime Decarbonisation Hub and UMAS to estimate potential CO₂ emissions savings from the adoption of low-embodied emissions steel in the shipping industry.

SSI, active since 2010, has been addressing numerous sustainability issues in the maritime industry such as transparency in ship recycling, seafarers’ welfare, sustainable marine fuels, and the just and equitable transition of the shipping industry. Lloyd’s Register has been a founding member of SSI since its inception.

The Lloyd’s Register is a founding member of SSI.