From Fragmented to Connected: Advancing Green Deal Goals in the Maritime Supply Chain Through Digitalization

PRESS RELEASE: On 27 October 2025, PERMAGOV organised a workshop to reflect on digitalisation and decarbonisation in the maritime supply chain, with a focus on shipping and ports. Stakeholders representing EU ports, shippers, ship owners, academia, and NGOs explored how digital tools and governance approaches can accelerate progress toward the European Green Deal and strengthen maritime sustainability. Digital polling and interactive collaboration tools allowed participants to jointly identify challenges, needs, and pathways for coordinated action around three thematic areas.

Interoperability

Across stakeholder perspectives, there was strong alignment on the importance of establishing a shared digital language across ships, ports, and logistics chains. Participants emphasised that effective digitalisation for decarbonisation requires global and harmonised standards, clear reporting frameworks, and technical architectures capable of ensuring smooth data exchange. Many stressed that reporting systems must avoid duplication, should be built on existing initiatives, and embrace a once-only principle (collect once, use many times). Simplicity and practicality were repeatedly highlighted: digital solutions should be accessible, scalable, and adaptable to different operational and maturity contexts. Participants agreed that exploiting existing initiatives and collaborative networks will be essential, rather than building entirely new structures, and that neutral leadership is needed to steer harmonisation efforts and guide consistent implementation.

Coordination

Participants recognised that progress depends on a balanced combination of bottom-up innovation and top-down alignment. Rather than multiplying platforms and governance arrangements, the group principally agreed on the value of building on established international and regional frameworks, while ensuring that coordination remains inclusive, flexible, and responsive to the realities of different ports and supply-chain actors. Trust, shared accountability, and transparent facilitation emerged as key ingredients for sustained engagement. Participants also recognised that digital maturity varies widely across regions, and that capacity-building and peer learning will be necessary to bring all actors forward together. Lessons from other sectors, such as aviation and energy, were noted as useful benchmarks for designing governance models that both enable innovation and safeguard public objectives.

Transparency

Participants expressed a shared ambition for environmental and carbon-related information to become as reliable, auditable, and trusted as financial data. Technology was seen as a major enabler — including secure digital infrastructures and mechanisms that allow traceability while ensuring data protection. Several contributors emphasised that transparency should create business value, support greener procurement, and strengthen supply-chain credibility, not merely satisfy compliance obligations. Public trust and competitive fairness were recognised as critical outcomes, supported by accessible and verifiable environmental data.

Interactive session

The workshop employed dynamic polling to collect information on challenges, opportunities, and priority action (see Mentimeter slides below). As regards challenges to shipping decarbonisation, participants indicated that bad cooperation is the main barrier, followed by inadequate standards. Interestingly, they thought that an existing policy framework can address current shortcomings, and that opportunities in the form of digital tools, actor capability and revitilisation should be pursued to achieve decarbonisation goals. Finally, participants voted that investment in R&D should get a priority, followed by enabling access to finance, improving policy coherence, and strengthening community engagement.

Conclusion

Taken together, the workshop pointed to a clear set of actions for future work:

• Advancing harmonised digital standards and reporting structures that are globally compatible and practically implementable

• Strengthening coordination mechanisms that build on existing institutions while ensuring inclusivity and flexibility

• Investing in trustworthy and secure data infrastructures to support transparency and open benchmarking

• Fostering incentives, capacity-building, and collaborative learning to support consistent adoption across the full maritime value chain

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The workshop was organised by members of the PERMAGOV team from Aalborg University’s Center for Blue Governance, Wageningen University’s Environmental Policy Group, European Shippers Council, and 21c Consultancy.

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