Innovations in environmental technology for the shipping industry: identifying the explanatory factors

Abstract

The carbon emissions targets of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) rely on the adoption of green fuels and related environmental technology. This paper examines the development of environmental technology for the world shipping industry. Existing studies mainly focus on the statistical relationship between innovations and hypothesized explanatory factors. This paper, however, analyzes each economy’s absolute number of shipping-related innovations in environmental technology, its Relative Technology Advantage (RTA) and the ‘ubiquity’ of the technology. The empirical results, together with an analysis of national green shipping reports, reveal that not all major economic players are motivated to invest in innovations in environmental technology for shipping and that environmental targets for the industry are most likely to be achieved through cooperation between economies.