The mission policy approach to the sustainable blue economy has identified as critical the ability to anticipate the emergence of a wide range of feasible innovations as they enter the transactional environment of organizations in the marine and maritime sector. This article contributes to that growing effort by harnessing the wisdom of the crowd and presents more than 60 crowdsourced, time-specific innovation forecasts expected to impact maritime, shipbuilding, ports, offshore wind, and ocean infrastructure. Data were collected in 2020 by the EU-funded Interreg VB PERISCOPE Project, a North Sea Region initiative to catalyze transregional innovation. The results can be used strategically to develop collaborative, transregional planning and policy for innovation based on data reflecting public expectations for the future. Years from now, this article can also act as a snapshot of public expectations at the onset of the decade.
Reduction of carbon emissions is a societal challenge that demands concerted efforts. The maritime industry is no exception. This paper takes an ecosystem perspective and considers the question of how to enact the green transition of the maritime industry and explore the barriers and enablers of that goal. To this end, we conduct an exploratory case-study to investigate the maritime value chain by focusing on 9 major stakeholders and conducting more than 20 interviews. Our study reveals four continuous enablers and two essential enablers to establishing a functional green maritime ecosystem.
Rapporten præsenterer resultaterne af forskningsprojektet "Værdier og Normer for Grøn Omstilling i Det Blå Danmark", der har undersøgt de kulturelle og sociale betingelser, som medlemmer i branchen oplever enten understøtter eller står i vejen for grøn omstilling i den danske skibsfart og de tilknyttede sektorer og organisationer.
Knowledge of ecosystem services (ES) and the benefits provided by offshore marine areas, including the welfare impacts from the establishment of marine protected areas (MPAs) is still limited. In the present study we evaluated benefits from ES, citizens' willingness-to-pay for potential changes in the provision of ES, and welfare losses to citizens due to restrictions on economic activities from establishing new offshore MPAs in Latvian waters. The scenarios for the economic valuation were based on analyzing the supply of ES from the protected marine habitats, showing changes in the ES supply in policy relevant scenarios of the MPA size. Our study evaluates a wide array of ES delivered by offshore protected habitats and reveals that citizens' willingness-to-pay for preserving habitats and ES supply exceeds their welfare losses from restrictions in economic activities. Our approach supports the prioritization of habitat types according to their contribution to ES supply and benefits for citizens. The analysis can be complemented with spatial data regarding the distribution of habitats, providing an opportunity to identify areas with the highest ES benefits to support marine protection and spatial planning.
The publication reports on a study of blockchain in the maritime sector with a focus on three value chains, namely container transport, fishing and processing of fish and shellfish, and plastic recycling. The publication describes different ways of using blockchain in the form of different types of companies, and with this as a starting point, the publication discusses the prerequisites for blockchain to be used in the analyzed value chains.
Wind-assisted ship propulsion (WASP) technology seems to be a promising solution toward accelerating the shipping industry’s decarbonization efforts as it uses wind to replace part of the propulsive power generated from fossil fuels. This article discusses the status quo of the WASP technological growth within the maritime transport sector by means of a secondary data review analysis, presents the potential fuel-saving implications, and identifies key factors that shape the operational efficiency of the technology. The analysis reveals three key considerations. Firstly, despite the existing limited number of WASP installations, there is a promising trend of diffusion of the technology within the industry. Secondly, companies can achieve fuel savings, which vary depending on the technology installed. Thirdly, these bunker savings are influenced by environmental, on-board, and commercial factors, which presents both opportunities and challenges to decision makers.
With growing pressures on marine ecosystems and on marine space, an increasingly needed strategy to optimize the use of marine space is to co-locate synergic marine human uses in close spatial–temporal proximity while separating conflicting marine human uses. The ArcMap toolbox SEANERGY is a new, cross-sectoral spatial decision support tool (DST) that enables maritime spatial planners to consider synergies and conflicts between marine uses to support assessments of co-location options. Cross-sectoral approaches are important to reach more integrative maritime spatial planning (MSP) processes. As this article demonstrates through a Baltic Sea analysis, SEANERGY presents a crosssectoral use catalog for MSP through enabling the tool users to answer important specific questions to spatially and/or numerically weight potential synergies/conflicts between marine uses. The article discusses to what degree such a cross-sectoral perspective can support integrative MSP processes. While MSP integrative challenges still exist, SEANERGY enables MSP processes to move towards developing shared goals and initiate discussions built on best available knowledge regarding potential use-use synergies and use-use conflicts for whole sea basins at once.
With the blue economic sectors growing, marine macroalgae cultivation plays an important role in securing food and energy supplies, as well as better water quality in sustainable ways, whether alone or as part of a cluster solution to mitigate the effects of fish farming. While macroalgae cultivation exists in Europe, it is not that widely distributed yet; with increasing marine activities at sea, Maritime Spatial Planning (MSP) needs to ensure social recognition as well as social and spatial representation for such a new marine activity. This comparative case study analysis of MSPs of three eastern Baltic Sea countries explores the levels of support for the development of macroalgae cultivation in MSP and the degree of co-location options for this new and increasingly important sector. It presents new analytical ways of incorporating co-location considerations into the concept of social sustainability. The results of this study support the harmonisation of views on co-location, propose ways of using space to benefit multiple users as well as marine ecosystems, and highlight some of the key social challenges and enablers for this sector.
Implementation of alternative energy supply solutions requires the broad involvement of local communities. Hence, smart energy solutions are primarily investigated on a local scale, resulting in integrated community energy systems (ICESs). Within this framework, the distributed generation can be optimally utilised, matching it with the local load via storage and demand response techniques. In this study, the boat demand flexibility in the Ballen marina on Samsø—a medium-sized Danish island—is analysed for improving the local grid operation. For this purpose, suitable electricity tariffs for the marina and sailors are developed based on the conducted demand analysis. The optimal scheduling of boats and battery energy storage system (BESS) is proposed, utilising mixed-integer linear programming. The marina’s grid-flexible operation is studied for three representative weeks—peak tourist season, late summer, and late autumn period—with the combinations of high/low load and photovoltaic (PV) generation. Several benefits of boat demand response have been identified, including cost savings for both the marina and sailors, along with a substantial increase in load factor. Furthermore, the proposed algorithm increases battery utilisation during summer, improving the marina’s cost efficiency. The cooperation of boat flexibility and BESS leads to improved grid operation of the marina, with profits for both involved parties. In the future, the marina’s demand flexibility could become an essential element of the local energy system, considering the possible increase in renewable generation capacity—in the form of PV units, wind turbines or wave energy