The two authorities have teamed up to make shipping between their ports environmentally friendly through cleaner fuels and digitalisation.
Rotterdam and Singapore intend to form a broad coalition of shippers, fuel suppliers, and other companies to tackle the challenges of providing sufficient amounts of alternative fuels.
In parallel, they will work toward creating a digital trade lane, the aim of which is to smoothen the flow of information for better vessel traffic.
To those ends, the port authorities have already engaged the Global Centre for Maritime Decarbonisation, the Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller Center for Zero-Carbon Shipping, bp, CMA CGM, the Digital Container Shipping Association, Maersk, MSC, Ocean Network Express, PSA International, and Shell.
"Decarbonising shipping is an urgent climate action priority, which requires the collective efforts of the entire maritime sector. [...] This memorandum of understanding with the Port of Rotterdam demonstrates how like-minded partners can work together to complement the efforts of the International Maritime Organization. It will serve as a valuable platform to pilot ideas that can be scaled up for more sustainable international shipping," S. Iswaran, Singapore's Minister for Transport and Minister-in-Charge of Trade Relations, said.
Allard Castelein, the Port of Rotterdam Authority's CEO, commented, "Shipping is among the most important industries to decarbonise, owing to its large international reach and volume, which continues to grow. By bringing together parties across the supply chain along one of the world's biggest trade lanes, we can enable carriers to switch to zero-carbon fuels and speed up the transition to more sustainable shipping."
Quah Ley Hoon, the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore's Chief Executive, underlined, "This MoU further strengthens the strong partnership between Singapore and Rotterdam. It reaffirms Singapore's commitment towards facilitating a multi-fuel bunkering transition as part of the Maritime Singapore Decarbonisation Blueprint 2050, and accelerates our digitalisation efforts to optimise maritime efficiency and improve supply chain resilience. The pilot will complement efforts undertaken by the shipping industry, including partners such as Google Cloud, and the IMO to support decarbonisation and digitalisation transition for international shipping, as we work towards developing and scaling up green and digital solutions for wider adoption."
Bo Cerup-Simonsen, CEO of the Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller Center for Zero-Carbon Shipping, also said, "The Singapore-Rotterdam Green Corridor is fully in line with our strategy to accelerate the decarbonisation of the maritime industry by supporting first movers. We need bold projects like this to leverage the learnings and further develop green partnerships across the value chain. Connecting globally leading partners around one of the major trade-lanes will allow us to demonstrate concrete, scalable decarbonisation solutions that can inform and inspire industry as well as policy makers around the world."
Professor Lynn Loo, CEO of the Global Centre for Maritime Decarbonisation (GCMD), summed up by saying, "International shipping will have to deploy at least 5% zero-emission fuels in its fuel mix by 2030 for the sector to meet a Paris-aligned net-zero target. To this end, green corridors provide a framework to harmonise standards and regulations, increase green fuels availability and strengthen their supply chains, and attract green financing for bunkering infrastructure buildout at ports involved. GCMD is excited to be an action partner in the development of the world's first green and digital corridor. We will operationalise meaningful route-base, port-to-port pilots along this green corridor to help international shipping navigate and accelerate its transition towards a zero-carbon future."
Photo: Port of Rotterdam