So I'm here at COP28 and I have the pleasure to be with Bo
Cerup-Simonsen, who is the CEO of the Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller
Center for Zero Carbon Shipping.
Bo, we've just come out of a really interesting panel today
talking about how collaboration should work across the maritime
value chain to decarbonize shipping.
Today, you've had a big announcement.
You've talked about green corridors.
I'm just wondering if you could explore, you know, what that
announcement was and why that has become such a success for
the Center.
I think that our sector has gone from having a dream, if you go
back five or ten years, of being part of the transition, yet you
can say that initiatives, activities were, very sort, of
component-based in the system. A little bit here, a little bit
there, kind of anecdotal.
What we're seeing now is that that community of leaders across
the system: from energy producers, from utilities,
ports, logistics providers, shipping companies, cargo
owners, financial institutions, and cargo owners, that system is
now coming together.
It is collaborating to create visions.
It is collaborating to create pathways.
It's collaborating to even create some of the work, some of
the solutions needed in the pre-competitive space.
So concepts for new technical designs, concepts for new
business frameworks, concepts and standards to be used in the
regulatory regime.
And the big thing now of this community coming together is
that we can start to imagine or reimagine if you will, how that
future business system is going to look, and what it actually
means on a very concrete level.
So what we have done here at the COP is that we have presented,
announced a number of activities around the green corridors.
And the green corridors is for us exactly that.
It is the realization of that new business system seen from a
technical perspective, seen from a business and finance
perspective, and seen from the regulatory and standard-setting
and permitting perspective.
And, so, we have worked very concretely with stakeholders in
various green corridors to make that concrete.
And one of the recent examples is the work we have done with
the Chilean ministries and companies in Chile to
demonstrate how Chile can produce fuel, how they can
transport it to ports, how they can retrofit the ports, how they
can enable, for example, transportation of copper out of
Chile on ships that can run on these new fuels.
And like I said, you need to engage a lot of stakeholders in
that and you need to turn it down to a techno-economic
description of what are you tangibly going to do.
And I guess that was my question is, you know, all these
different actors all with a different intent and a different
reason to be in a green corridor.
How do you make, how do you get them to actually work together?
Because sometimes language in itself is a barrier.
But language from different parts of the value chain really
come to a fore.
So, first of all, you need to achieve the goodwill to the
mission.
You need to have a credible narrative about why we are doing
this.
And the Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller Center for Zero Carbon Shipping
is privileged to have that narrative built into our DNA.
We are for the greater good.
We are a philanthropic donation to the ecosystem.
So when we go to Chile, or now to Africa, with Namibia, when we
go to Asia, we go there for the greater good, not to make
profits.
And I think that's really the starting point.
So people can come onto our platform.
And on that platform, we strive to create this safe space of
collaboration where we can share ideas and we can share data, and
so on, up to a certain level and thereby also create a space.
You know, the rules need to be clear.
The rules of the games really need to be clear on what we want
to do and can do, and what we cannot do.
And I think it's, you know, testament to that is if you look
at the number of partnerships that you've had, it's almost
become exponential.
The value proposition you provide by the industry is for
sure unique.
I want to take a little bit of a turn here. Everybody talks about
the need for regulation and we saw some big moves of that
during the summer at MEPC 80, but regulation is going to take
time to come.
What do we need to do now?
What do owners, operators, fuel providers, what is it now they
can do, rather than just waiting those years for these things to
come in place.
There's a lot of work to be done now in order to get really good
upscaling of the transition.
So at this point in time, we really need that community of
leaders. Those that are willing to lean in and start working on
this, without having a classical business case because there is
not today.
So you cannot manage, you cannot finance, resource these
activities the way you normally can with business cases.
So companies lean in and we are seeing that companies start to
lean in.
They dare to have a vision in the company.
They dare to set objectives in the company of reduction targets
and they manage a culture internally, which is very
different from an old culture that was more like a management
culture, with KPIs, and performances, and so on.
And you would look at how you could incrementally sort of
improve the machinery.
Now you need to be blunt, set objectives into a space that you
don't even know how you're going to fulfill, and manage that
culture internally.
And then you need to be able also, as a senior executive, to
turn around towards your owners, towards the shareholders and
stock markets and so on, and explain we know what we're
doing.
We're going to return something to you sometime.
It may be a bumpy road. But that communication one way towards
the owners where you need stability, and predictability,
and solidity and so on; and then something else to watch your
employees and your company. That's that's one of the big
things, one of the big challenges.
So we've got the regulation sorted, we've got the technology
sorted, and now it's a people topic, it's a leadership topic.
It's very much a leadership topic.
It's a leadership topic on all levels, all the way from the top
executives, who need to make the difficult or challenging
communication that I just explained, and then all the way
down through the organization to the individual person.
I think we're privileged today with a new wave of employees
coming in, new talent looking for jobs, that are looking for a
new kind of work environment where there is a purpose, where
there is a freedom to innovate, and yet there are requirements,
and there is discipline, and you need to perform.
And that's the kind of people needed and it's the kind of
culture that needs to be stimulated. Deliver, deliver,
but keep the dream alive, keep the vision alive, keep the view
on the horizon at the same time.
Nice.
I like it, Bo.
And my last question is, you know, this COP this year has
been, you know, it's been in the press, there's been controversy,
there's been some very positive things come coming out of it.
I'm just wondering from your time here, what's that one thing
that gives you hope that we're on the right direction?
What's that discussion or that interview that you've had where
you've gone:
OK, we're on the right track here.
I think that is more an emotional thing than an
analytical thing, actually.
It's more meeting people eye-to-eye and talking about,
'is this genuine or is it just, you know, numbers'?
And so the leaders that I have met at this COP are very genuine
about it.
They want their businesses, or they want their authorities to
be part of this solution, shaping the future.
And I have met tremendously strong leaders from enormously
strong companies that genuinely want to do that.
Some of them are in the Center, fortunately, and we have 100
organizations now working with us, and they lean in.
They start to order ships that can run on new fuel types.
They start to retrofit ports.
Cargo owners start to make changes in the procurement.
They make ESG strategies.
They start to lean in.
And I think this concretization of the transition that we're
seeing now, that's not waiting for regulation.
Regulation is creating confidence that it is coming,
but it is really down to individual leadership: people
believing in the pathway, and in the objective, and the purpose,
and then doing something about it.
And that, for company leaders, means actually spending
resources, spending leadership bandwidth on this, spending real
resources, whatever that is. Whether it's time or money, on
exploring, experimenting, setting targets, and working to
change the culture to become part of this.
And to your question, the reason I have confidence is that I see
and I sense a lot of that amongst the leaders today.
Very good.
Bo, thank you so much for taking the time, and a huge
congratulations to you and all the people at the Center in
Copenhagen for all the tremendous work that you're
doing.
It really is inspiring and it's inspiring an industry at the
moment to make that transition.
So thank you.
Thank you very much, Peter.
Thank you for inviting me.