What does it actually take for a system to be trusted at sea?

Assurance has never been a single event — surveys, audits and renewals have always kept certification alive rather than settling it once. What's changing is the pace those checks now have to keep. As technology, fuels and regulation move faster, the gap between one review and the next matters more than it used to, and standing still between them carries more risk.

Trust is becoming less about something proved once and more about something demonstrated continuously.

Fuel switching has become the maritime industry's most consequential and least verifiable decision. Every claim of genuine emissions reduction depends on a chain of paperwork stretching from feedstock origin through blending, storage and delivery, most of which a buyer has no practical way to confirm.

The Pacific Environment and NTU Singapore study puts a number on what has largely been treated as background risk. Fraud involving waste feedstocks such as used cooking oil and palm oil mill effluent is documented, not theoretical. As biofuel and alternative fuel volumes grow, so does the incentive to mislabel conventional feedstock as sustainable, and paper trails alone have proven unable to catch it.

That is why the recommendations carry weight beyond one report. Chemical fingerprinting of fuel, cross-checked against documentation, tests what a barrel actually contains rather than what it claims to contain. A centralised digital database preventing the same batch from being sold and counted twice addresses a separate failure entirely, one built into how ownership records move across counterparties and jurisdictions.

Both proposals point toward the same underlying problem. Shipping's decarbonisation figures are only as credible as the fuel accounting beneath them, and that accounting has been built almost entirely on trust between counterparties who rarely have the means or the incentive to check each other's claims.

The IMO's pending fuel standards inherit this problem directly. If certification frameworks aren't built to withstand fraud at the feedstock level, compliance figures produced under a new global standard risk carrying the same vulnerabilities as the voluntary schemes examined in the study.

For an industry moving billions toward fuels it cannot yet fully verify, that vulnerability sits closer to the center of the energy transition than most conversations about vessel technology or route optimisation currently acknowledge.

When a trend isn’t a strategy

"Companies are adding tools because maritime tends to follow a trend. But a trend is not always the best way to go." — Panagiotis Mouameletzis, Almi Marine Management.

The Great Integration takes a sober look at why buying more tools rarely solves the underlying problem, and how the operators making real progress are doing the opposite - pausing, mapping their decisions, and choosing what to connect rather than what to procure.

» Download your copy «

Koch Shipping expands Sofar Ocean Wayfinder across its fleet

Koch Shipping has renewed its Wayfinder contract with Sofar Ocean and added more vessels to the platform. The system supports voyage planning, at-sea routing and post-voyage reporting across its chartered fleet.

Robo.ai plans UAE maritime unit around AI, sensing and digital twins

Robo.ai plans to establish Alif Maritec in the UAE to develop maritime protection, smart port and underwater intelligence systems. The unit will combine AI, advanced sensing and digital twins across ports, coastlines and offshore infrastructure.

€24m, 44 partners: VIRTUAL VEHICLE brings software assurance to maritime

VIRTUAL VEHICLE's COMET SDM programme will bring together 44 industry and research partners with €24 million in planned funding over four years. Its maritime work will cover trustworthy simulation, AI, digital twins and autonomous vessel systems.

Three OceanWings sails: Compagnie Maritime Nantaise orders hybrid RoRo

Compagnie Maritime Nantaise is ordering a new RoRo vessel with three automated OceanWings rigid sails, due to enter service by 2030. The ship will combine wind assistance with weather routing, hull optimisation and biofuel compatibility to reduce its environmental footprint.

Six maritime emissions regimes: 90POE secures independent certification

90POE's OpenOcean STUDIO has been independently certified by Normec Verifavia against six maritime emissions and fuel regimes, including EU ETS, FuelEU Maritime and IMO CII. The certification covers emissions calculations, voyage data, reporting and IT controls used by shipowners and operators.

» Secure your Delegate Pass «

» Register your Interest «

Fincantieri’s Navis Sapiens programme aims to give shipowners an open digital platform that can evolve after delivery through shared data, over-the-air updates, AI and new onboard services.