As marine shipping works to reduce its environmental impacts, decision-makers are faced with a growing number of options for new technologies and alternative fuels. While many solutions offer environmental benefits, they can also introduce new risks, uncertainties, and trade-offs across environmental, operational, social, and economic objectives.
The Pathways to Zero-Impact Shipping project was a collaborative research initiative among Clear Seas, the University of British Columbia (UBC), and the National Research Council of Canada (NRC). The project explored how systems thinking and structured decision-making approaches can support more holistic evaluations of technologies, fuels, and research investments intended to reduce the environmental impacts of marine shipping operations.
Through interviews, workshops, and case studies with marine shipping professionals, the research examined how organizations make decisions in complex and uncertain environments and developed a practical framework to support more transparent, evidence-informed decision-making.
Ultimately, the project demonstrates that there is rarely a single “best” solution. Instead, better outcomes depend on understanding the co-benefits, trade-offs, and uncertainties associated with different pathways and making those considerations explicit in decision-making processes.
