CirclesOfLife is committed to tackling the critical challenges in modern shipbuilding – from cradle to cradle and involving European partners, competitors, suppliers, and stakeholders.
Our focus is on reducing emissions, enhancing material circularity, and ensuring comprehensive environmental reporting. Overcoming these challenges is vital for creating a sustainable and eco-friendly maritime industry.
We encourage shipyards around the world to follow CirclesOfLife and use the answers this project generates in their own day to day practice.
Ships contribute significantly to global CO2 and other emissions. Reducing these emissions, especially during the operational phase, is crucial. The transition to climate-neutral fuels and adherence to international regulations like the IMO’s EEDI (Energy Efficiency Design Index), SEEMP (Ship Energy Efficiency Management Plan), and CII (IMO Carbon Intensity Indicator) are essential steps towards achieving significant emission reductions.
Working together, the shipping and shipbuilding industries can deliver a significant contribution to global harmful emissions reduction, especially when it comes to propulsion and onboard energy supply systems.
Additionally, initiatives like the FIT for 55 package and FuelEU aim to expand emission trading systems and reduce carbon intensity in energy carriers, significantly lowering operational vessel emissions. Implementing all of the above can be quite a challenge for individual companies. That’s why the CirclesOfLife consortium joins forces in searching for widely applicable solutions.
The environmental footprint of shipyard processes and integrated materials needs substantial improvement. New methods need to be introduced. Promoting the reuse and recycling of materials throughout a ship’s lifecycle, from design and production to maintenance and decommissioning, is key to achieving a circular economy and minimizing waste in the maritime industry.
Effective implementation requires powerful ERP and PLM systems to collect comprehensive data on the environmental performance of used materials. Addressing material circularity also involves overcoming the complexity of ships, which can consist of over 10,000 parts, and ensuring the environmental performance of these materials – and ideally even their own production process – is monitored and reported in a transparent way.
New Corporate Sustainability Reporting requirements mandate European shipyards to monitor and report their environmental impacts comprehensively. Implementing robust software (a.o. ERP, PLM) and hardware to collect and connect environmental performance data is necessary for transparent, accurate, and trustworthy reporting.
This starts in 2025 – and CirclesOfLife runs from 2024 to the end of 2026. Tracking activities at the yard level and non-operational phases of ships, such as production, maintenance, and decommissioning needs to start now if companies aim to make the EU deadline.
This transparency is crucial for providing stakeholders, including customers and financing institutions, with trustworthy, and understandable environmental reports, ensuring regulatory compliance and a competitive advantage.
The 15 partners of CirclesOfLife aim to revolutionize shipbuilding by developing and implementing the SEPI (Shipyard Environmental Performance Indicator) and the Ship Lifecycle Passport (SLP). The initiative leverages extensive expertise and smart software applications to ensure integration into existing IT infrastructures, aiming for broad applicability and acceptance across the European maritime community.
Co-funded by
the European Union
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement No 101138013.
Disclaimer: This page reflects only the authors’ views. The European Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains.