First featured on SAFETY4SEA
Huge congratulations to our CEO, Prof. Lynn Loo, for winning the 2024 GREEN4SEA Personality Award!
This award is awarded directly by Green4Sea’s editorial team “to an individual who has provided industry influence and contributed towards greener and sustainable shipping”.
Watch her full video or read her acceptance speech here.
Transcript of Prof. Loo’s acceptance speech
Hello everybody, on behalf of the team at the Global Centre for Marine Decarbonisation (GCMD), thank you so much to GREEN4SEA for this incredible award. It’s truly humbling to be recognised. Considering that GCMD is only two and a half years old and that I’ve only been involved in the sector for about the same amount of time, it feels really surreal. I always say that I stumbled upon shipping and shipping took a chance on me and GCMD.
While on a sabbatical from Princeton, I found myself on an extended stay in Singapore due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It was at this time I was asked to join the International Panel for Maritime Decarbonisation. Following their recommendations, GCMD was established, a collaboration between the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore and industry partners.
Being entrusted to lead this passionate team at GCMD has been an immense honour. We are a small team with a big mission: to support maritime decarbonisation by shaping standards, deploying solutions, financing projects, and fostering collaboration across sectors.
Friends, decarbonisation requires action, not just ideas. That’s why GCMD prioritises real-world pilots and trials. These can be complex because regulations haven’t caught up yet. So, we work with progressive ports and regulatory authorities to create “sandbox” environments to allow our pilots to take place. For this, I’m incredibly grateful to those who’ve engaged with us constructively.
Our success hinges on collaboration. We’ve built a network of over 100 partners who fund us, share their knowledge, expertise and experience, and even their ships for crucial testing. They validate and strengthen our findings and, in the process, challenge us, inspire us, and help us grow.
In just a short period of time, we’ve launched four initiatives and completed some exciting projects under them. We’ve completed a safety study to pilot ammonia bunkering, paving the way to develop standards and training programmes for the safe transfer of ammonia during bunkering operations.
We’re also developing an assurance framework for drop-in green fuels and have completed three supply chains with biofuel blends deploying various tracing technology, including physical tracers, carbon dating, chemical fingerprinting and a lock-and-seal methodology.
Recently, we completed a concept study on the offloading of carbon dioxide that had been captured onboard vessels. We are about to publish our study on the conceptual design and front-end engineering of an onboard carbon capture system for an MR tanker.
Finally, we’re piloting a “Pay-as-You-Save” financing model to stimulate investment in energy efficient technologies to increase its adoption.
This award is a testament to the incredible team at GCMD and our dedicated partners.
Together, we’re stronger and together, we’re making a difference. Thank you very much.
