Hello Åsa Burman!

Lighthouse has now run the Swedish Transport Administration's industry program for one year and on March 31, the annual conference Hållbar sjöfart seglar vidare will take place on Lindholmen in Gothenburg.

Why go there?

“To learn things, meet interesting people and make contacts or talk about collaborations you already have. Or maybe you get new ideas. There will be lots of interesting things to talk about, not least about the projects we presented at last year's conference. What has come out of them? What are the possible continuations on them?”

Lighthouse has been running the industry program for exactly one year. How has it been?

“Of course, thre´s been a lot of start-up work. We had quite a short time to get to good projects with a breadth of content and participants. It has also taken a lot of time to find forms of reporting for both projects and programs. Fortunately, we have been able to hire a coordinator for Lighthouse and the industry program, Louise, who is very talented. It's been a lot of fun to get started.”

Are there any particular trends that have emerged in the industry during the year that you want to highlight?

“Yes, ammonia has started to be seriously discussed as the maritime fuel of the future. We picked this up already over two years ago and in 2018, funds were sought from the collaboration program f3 for a pre-study, but no money was granted. Therefore, it’s very satisfying that the first pre-study that was completed within Sustainable Shipping is about ammonia. And now we´re making a major research project out of it.”

Are there more projects that are catching up on current issues?

“Yes, several of the new ones. One is about methane slip. It is important to find solutions for those companies who are already running vessels on LNG so that the benefit of a new fuel is not eaten up by unwanted methane emissions.”

The conference also has two external speakers, Karl Forsell, professor, Center for Maritime Health and Torbjörn Rydhberg, CEO, Marine Benchmark. What will they talk about?

“Within Sustainable Shipping there are several projects on mental illness, but there are studies done on both physical and mental illness. Karl Forsell will give an overall picture of the studies and what research needs are in the area. Maybe it will give some new ideas.”

“Torbjörn Rydhberg has taken a closer look at the development of global shipping greenhouse gas emissions between 2011 and 2020. He will talk about that and about the trends towards 2030 and 2050”, Åsa Burman says.