Investment in fuel-efficiency technologies is an essential part of shipping’s path toward decarbonisation. However, investment decisions become far more difficult when performance claims are uncertain or overstated. This insight explores how unverified fuel-saving claims can lead to capital misallocation, with shipowners potentially investing in solutions that fail to deliver the expected benefits while more effective innovations struggle to gain traction.
When claims are not independently verified, owners may invest in technologies that are not well-suited to their business, wasting capital on solutions that don’t deliver promised savings.
For smaller owners in particular, one failed investment can discourage further experimentation. As one interviewee told us, “A single failed investment for a small owner can represent a major part of their annual budget and discourage them from trying new solutions in the future, making them more sceptical.”
With many software providers chasing the business of a limited number of commercial vessels, investor returns are reducing, and the maritime technology market is heading for consolidation. This environment makes it harder for a single product to grow and mature, increasing the likelihood of the same providers dominating the technology landscape.
Operational fragmentation further complicates the picture. Cargo ships, passenger ships, and offshore vessels all operate in different ways, and even within the same category the variation is huge.
For example, cargo ships may switch between tramp trades and long-haul liner routes, or between time-charter and spot employment. Passenger vessels range from tightly scheduled ferries to cruise ships with highly variable hotel loads.
Every vessel is also uniquely designed and operated under specific commercial conditions. This means that operational behaviour is the product of vessel type, ship design, trading pattern, commercial constraints, and crew behaviour.
Voyage optimisation technologies must therefore cope with a fragmented operational landscape, one where generic models rarely fit and where optimisation must be tailored to each vessel and use case.
However, data, models, weather inputs, standards, and even user behaviour are quite often inconsistent and disconnected, making it even more difficult to prove results and build trust.
This can foster a defensive mindset in which each party depends solely on its own data and definitions, eroding industry cohesion.
Download ‘The 5-10% Illusion’ and explore why the maritime industry’s reliance on unverified efficiency claims is eroding trust, and discover a framework to restore measurement discipline.
