Lending our voice to climate advocacy
The pressure for environmental action and regulation creates the need for even greater collaboration between industry players— not only amongst ship owners and operators but also charterers, banks, and governments. We are active participants in multiple associations working on industry matters, including climate change initiatives.
In 2024, BW Group and its affiliates were a member of or partner with the following associations and organisations:
The Global Centre for Maritime Decarbonisation
The Global Centre for Maritime Decarbonisation (GCMD) was established as a non-profit organisation on 1 August 2021 with a mission to support the decarbonisation of the maritime industry by shaping standards, deploying solutions, financing projects, and fostering collaboration across sectors. GCMD is strategically located in Singapore, the world’s largest bunkering hub and busiest transshipment port. Given the complexities of the maritime ecosystem and the urgency to decarbonise, collaboration across the value chain is key to realising IMO’s 2030 and 2050 targets.
Founded by six industry partners namely BHP, BW Group, Eastern Pacific Shipping, Foundation Det Norske Veritas, Ocean Network Express and Seatrium, GCMD also receives funding from the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) for qualifying research and development programmes and projects. Since its founding, bp, Hanwha Ocean, Hapag-Lloyd and NYK Line have joined as Strategic partners.
Chaired by BW Group Chairman, Andreas Sohmen-Pao, the centre is focused on conducting pilots and trials to lower barriers for broad market adoption of low- / zero-carbon solutions by:
• Shaping standards:
Share the learnings from projects actively at relevant national and international technical committee meetings to assist and accelerate the drafting of guidelines and standards.
• Deploying solutions:
Rally partners and execute projects to demonstrate the viability of decarbonisation solutions.
• Financing projects:
Co-fund projects, especially ones that lack immediate commercial viability or ones that may not lead to commercial returns, so learnings may lower the barriers for adoption.
• Fostering collaboration:
Provide neutral ground for stakeholders across the value chain to convene, ensuring a diversity of inputs to scope and operationalise pilots.
GCMD recognises the need to bring stakeholders across the value chain together in a whole-of-systems manner to look at multiple solutions for international shipping to achieve its near and long-term decarbonisation ambitions. To prioritise, they scope their projects by:
• Enabling ammonia as a marine fuel:
GCMD completed a safety study on piloting ammonia bunkering in April 2023, paving the way for developing standards and training programs for safe ammonia transfer during breakbulk and bunkering operations. Building on this study, GCMD executed the first ammonia transfer at anchorage in the waters of Port Dampier, located in the Pilbara region of Western Australia.
• Developing an assurance framework for drop-in green fuels:
GCMD completed four supply chain trials with biofuel blends (B24 and B30), and a project trialling the continuous use of biofuels to study its impact on engine performance and onboard systems operations. Additionally, GCMD is exploring crude algae oil as a promising third-generation biofuel option.
• Unlocking the carbon value chain:
GCMD completed a techno-economic analysis of an onboard carbon capture system (OCCS) for an MR tanker. GCMD also published a study on the safe offloading of CO₂ captured onboard vessels, and a report examining shipping’s role in facilitating carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) in Asia Pacific. A study has also been initiated to evaluate the life cycle of GHG emissions from onboard capture, offloading, utilisation, and/ or sequestration pathways.
• Scaling adoption of energy efficiency technologies (EETs):
To address commercial barriers hindering the adoption of EETs, where performance variability makes it difficult to quantify their true impact, GCMD has launched Pay-As-You-Save (PAYS) pilots. These pilots aim to de-risk financing for energy efficiency retrofits by managing security risks associated with third-party investments, and to verify fuel savings and attribute them to specific technologies.
For more information, visit https://www.gcformd.org ↗
Other key industry collaborations and initiatives BW is involved in
Diversity Study Group
DSG is dedicated to diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace across the global shipping and maritime sectors.
Getting to Zero Coalition
Several BW affiliates have joined the Getting to Zero Coalition, an alliance of more than 200 companies within the maritime, energy, infrastructure, and finance industry, including key governments and Inter-Governmental Organisations support. The Coalition is committed to getting commercially viable zero-emission deep-sea vessels into operation by 2030.
All Aboard Alliance
The All Aboard Alliance was founded in 2022 via a collaborative drive from top industry leaders, towards increasing diversity, equity, and inclusion across the maritime sector. The Diversity Study Group is one of the Founding Knowledge Partners.
In 2024, the All Aboard Alliance launched the ‘15 Key Pain Points for Women at Sea’ report. The findings aim to help raise awareness of the challenges women face at sea, but more importantly, form an important part of the planned work within the alliance, enabling member companies to find new measures and solutions to address each of the 15 key points as part of the Diversity@Sea workstream.
CLIMMS
A joint industry project to identify pathways for transforming the international shipping sector towards the IMO 2050 goal of 50% reduction in GHG emissions and keeping global temperature rises below 2 °C.
Maritime Anti-Corruption Network
BW is a member of the Maritime Anti-Corruption Network (MACN), a global business network working towards the vision of a maritime industry free of corruption. Alongside BW Epic Kosan, BW LPG, Hafnia and Navigator Gas, BW Group actively supports MACN’s efforts to promote good corporate practices in the maritime industry for tackling bribes, facilitation payments and other forms of corruption.
BW continues to uphold high ethical standards, following strict anti-bribery policies. In September 2023, Dorte Thuesen Christensen, Vice President of Operations and Claims at Hafnia, was elected to the MACN Board of Directors.