Bridging the Energy Efficiency Gap in Shipping: Overcoming Economic, Behavioral, and Organisational Barriers

1. The Current Landscape: Proven Potential, Limited Uptake

The World Bank’s Keys to Energy-Efficient Shipping (October 2025) report shows that the global fleet could cut greenhouse gas emissions by up to 39 % by 2030 through existing technical and operational measures. Many of these are already commercially viable, even cost-negative when fuel savings are counted.

Yet adoption lags. From trim optimization to hull coatings, from waste-heat recovery to weather routing, the tools are there, but implementation is uneven. Novel technologies such as wind-assisted propulsion and air-lubrication systems are gaining attention, but they represent only part of the picture.

For most shipowners, the real opportunity lies in deploying the regular, proven technologies that deliver measurable returns today, while preparing for advanced solutions tomorrow.

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2. The Barriers to Adoption

The World Bank highlights three interlinked sets of barriers that explain why efficiency potential remains untapped.

Economic Barriers

• Imperfect information: Owners and operators often lack reliable, comparable data on actual savings from efficiency measures.

• Split incentives: Charterers pay for fuel; owners pay for upgrades, creating misaligned motivations.

• Uncertainty around future fuel prices: Volatile bunker prices make ROI projections difficult.

• Policy and performance uncertainty: Without consistent frameworks or long-term clarity on technology performance, investment confidence remains low.

Behavioral Barriers

• Information format and overload: Technical information is often delivered in ways that don’t translate into operational or financial terms.

• Credibility and trust: Many shipowners have “heard it before”, promised savings that never materialized. Building trust through verifiable data is critical.

Organizational Barriers

• Power and decision hierarchy: Technical managers, commercial teams, and finance often operate in silos with different priorities.

• Culture and inertia: Established operational norms and risk aversion slow change, even when the numbers add up.

These barriers explain why even cost-negative measures can face slow uptake, efficiency in shipping is as much a human and organizational challenge as a technical one.

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3. Solutions: From Data to Deployment

a. Building a Data-Driven Business Case

Transparent, verifiable performance data transforms efficiency from an environmental narrative into a commercial one. When owners can track and prove savings in real time, efficiency decisions become investment decisions, not sustainability pledges.

b. Integrating Proven and Novel Technologies

Regular measures, hull maintenance, trim optimization, autopilot tuning, waste-heat recovery, should form the operational baseline.
Emerging solutions, wind-assisted propulsion, air-lubrication, energy-recovery systems, build on that baseline, amplifying savings. The key is integration and ongoing measurement, not one-off retrofits.

c. Aligning Incentives Across the Value Chain

Performance-based contracts, data-sharing agreements, and transparent fuel-efficiency reporting can realign incentives between owners, charterers, and ports.

d. Shifting Culture Through Trust and Insight

Credibility comes from evidence. Data-validated insights, not marketing claims, build confidence in technology performance and support internal decision-making across technical and commercial teams.

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4. From Barriers to Action: Data, Insight, and Integration

Economic, behavioral, and organizational barriers are not abstract, they appear every day in investment decisions, operational planning, and internal communication.

The key to overcoming them lies in better information, aligned incentives, and the ability to translate insight into execution.

• Clarity over complexity – A fleet-wide technology screening helps decision-makers see the full efficiency landscape in one place. By comparing proven and emerging solutions on real operational data, rather than manufacturer claims, owners can identify where the most cost-effective gains lie and plan investments with confidence. (Link to technology screening)  

• Independent system design – Efficiency rarely comes from a single upgrade. Assessing combinations of technologies and operational measures, tailored to vessel type and trading profile, allows companies to model both performance and ROI with fewer assumptions and lower risk. Solution Design

• Seamless implementation – Coordinating efficiency upgrades across technical and commercial functions is often where projects stall. Structured project support, from evaluation to installation, helps translate strategy into action without disrupting day-to-day operations, bridging gaps between departments and decision layers. (Link to installation partnership)

• Continuous performance insight – Once technologies are in place, data should close the loop. Continuous monitoring of vessel and voyage performance provides verifiable feedback on what works, strengthens internal trust, and supports evidence-based decisions for future investments. Njord Performance

Together, these practices address the very barriers highlighted by the World Bank report, turning imperfect information into clarity, organizational silos into collaboration, and short-term actions into long-term efficiency.

Key takeaway:

Efficiency is no longer about choosing the next technology, it’s about creating the conditions where proven and emerging solutions can work together, guided by credible data and aligned incentives.

Sources:  

World Bank Report.  

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