Barriers to energy efficiency in short sea shipping: a case study

Increased energy efficiency will be paramount in the work to reduce CO2 emissions from shipping. However, there are two main problems. The first is that projections have shown that existing policies, technologies and measures are not enough to reduce emissions given the concurrent growth of the sector. Second, the projections have shown that a substantial amount of measures should be cost-efficient to implement. The fact that they have not been implies the existence of barriers to adopting these measures. This article investigate these barriers through a case study of a short sea shipping company in their process to improve their approach to managing work with energy efficiency. An action research approach was chosen in order to achieve access to richer data. The study shows that work with energy efficiency was not altogether straightforward from a management perspective, and several aspects acted as barriers. Among those discussed are project management capabilities, ship-shore communication, division of responsibilities, access to performance measurements, and competence in energy efficiency. This is a contrast to previous studies, which have typically discussed institutional or market barriers, such as contractual arrangements. These findings bring further understanding to what is needed to improve energy efficiency in shipping.