The appetite for green maritime technology is truly a global opportunity for the British economy, and 2021 will see demand for carbon neutral solutions increase exponentially. Real progress towards maritime decarbonisation is therefore essential – and happily – already tangible. But while there’s been huge progress made, there is still much more that needs to be done to reduce emissions and create carbon neutral solutions.

Carbon13 and Maritime UK are forming a partnership to unleash the biggest generator of game-changing innovation – our people. The expertise, the ambition and the commitment to Net Zero already exist, but the pathway to building startups that will grow into the UK’s next success stories still very much needs help.

Therefore we are introducing Carbon13, the Venture Builder for the Climate Crisis. The eight month programme supports extraordinary individuals to launch highly scalable and investable ventures – and the maritime industry is one of the target sectors. Each venture that is built and invested in must have the potential to reduce CO2e emissions by ten million tonnes. Collectively Carbon13 aims to reduce emissions by 400 million tonnes, the equivalent to the UK’s current annual emissions. Maritime’s role in this effort is crucial and exciting.

Applications for the March 2021 cohort are open now for just a few more weeks and we are calling on everyone involved in Maritime to share our hunt for the leaders of tomorrow, and to consider an application themselves.

There is no such thing as a typical founder. If you are committed to reducing emissions through a venture, then you’re a founder to us. You can be at any stage in your career and have any background or skillset.

You do not need an idea for a startup or a team. Carbon13’s programme provides you with everything you need to build a venture from scratch. We help you build a value proposition that both maximises its potential to reduce emissions and can serve customers at scale.

We de-risk the venture building process by matching you with cofounders, providing you with a stipend, and mentor you to avoid first time mistakes.

We believe there is huge potential for untapped innovation and sustainable entrepreneurship in the maritime sector and we aim to support the best talent to develop ideas, wherever they come from. In order to succeed, we need the brightest minds from the maritime industry to work on these solutions and reach net-zero.

Maritime UK’s role in hitting net-zero

So where will these big decarbonising ventures of tomorrow come from?

Maritime contributes around £46.1bn to the UK economy and supports over 1 million jobs. Building a startup that can reduce emissions by ten million tonnes means that in practice your startup needs to help 100 million consumers reduce their footprint by 1%, or 10m customers by 10%. But if you’re enterprise-facing, you’ll be helping the top 20 emitters reduce their footprints by half a million tonnes each, or the Fortune 1000 by 10,000 tonnes each.

Whether it is shipping, ports, services, engineering or leisure marine industries, all of these niches are plenty big enough to develop and support ventures that can have this kind of impact, and beyond.

Ben Murray, Director of Maritime UK says “there is no greater mission facing our planet than to decarbonise our economy, and that means massive progress must be made in an incredibly short period of time. That’s especially true for maritime – a sector responsible for enabling global trade, including some 95% of all imports and exports to the United Kingdom.

“Whilst the pace of change and innovation is quickening, there is much progress that needs to be made to ensure we have viable carbon neutral solutions by the end of this decade. Those solutions do not yet fully exist and that’s why we need to support the best talent to develop the most innovative of products and services, from wherever they come.

“We’re excited that this partnership with Carbon13 will help identify and realise truly transformational solutions and equally provide a talented pool of innovative companies to help respond to the challenges our sector faces.”