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The 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference COP 21 meeting, the Forum looked at the part the maritime sector plays in the climate change agenda. The subject of Thursday’s debate (26 November) was the divisive emissions problem, with the panel exploring potential solutions to curtail shipping’s emissions. Three different, highly informative speakers set the scene and challenged the audience to look at the issues from a number of perspectives.
First to stimulate thoughts was David Donnelly, Partner at Mazars, who looked at his experience as an expert in energy efficiency in buildings and how techniques could be transferred across into the maritime sector. Members learned that there has to be a financial justification in undertaking any investment in retrofitting environmental-efficiency technologies to vessels. Where financial gains could be realised fairly quickly after initial CAPEX, it was explained, as in insulation and lighting systems, then retrofitting could be undertaken with relative ease.
Other technologies, however, may not be retrofitted so easily because of the longer return on investment or simply because their commercial benefits cannot be monitored – in the maritime sector this is illustrated by ballast water treatment systems. In such cases in other sectors, said Donnelly, the energy efficient investment is deferred until the normal lifecycle replacement of the particular equipment.
There is an element of corporate social responsibility or corporate goodwill which has led to some businesses leading these changes and the UK’s National Health Service and developments in social housing are starting to adopt a number of the low risk, quick return energy efficient elements to newbuild programmes. But for real change to happen then there needs to be financial incentives or a legal obligation to drive the change, said Donnelly.
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