Astrup Fearnley, DNV, and Microsoft are no strangers. Norwegian-based Astrup Fearnley and DNV are global companies with long traditions and well-established values in the maritime industry. The Veracity by DNV cloud platform is built on Microsoft’s cloud computing service Azure. In 2021, DNV received the Sustainability changemaker partner of the year award from Microsoft Norway, based on cases developed over the platform.
Bonded by an ambition to help facilitate a more sustainable shipping industry, the maritime duo have spent the last few years investigating how DNV’s data-sharing platform, Veracity, could be used as a facilitator for change. The result is the development and testing of the Emissions Prediction Calculator.
Common goals
Emissions Prediction Calculator demonstrates how the industry collaborate to empower decarbonisation"
The Emissions Prediction Calculator, utilising DNV’s data-driven emissions models, targets shipbrokers, owners, and charterers to make more informed decisions of the environmental footprint of a future journey where otherwise little or no data is available.
“It demonstrates how the industry can collaborate to empower decarbonisation through digitalisation,” explains Dag Kilen, Head of Research, Fearnleys. “By working together, sharing and utilising validated quality data, different industry stakeholders such as brokers can make informed decisions and help drive understanding, standardisation and, ultimately, change. No one can do this alone. But together we unlock progress for the whole industry.”
Addressing big data
Microsoft recognises the same, as explained by Christoffer Lokrheim, Maritime Lead for Microsoft Norway, “When driving forward gains for sustainability, we are faced with questions like ‘what is the status today?’ ‘What and who are the largest polluters?’ and ‘how are they changing?’ "
"The entirety of these projects is a “big data” problem in the truest sense. We see that Industries and Ecosystems need to come together and share the common goal of optimising the entire value chains.”
Platform for progress
With tens of thousands of international industry stakeholders gathering physically, in one place, for the first time since the pandemic began, Nor-Shipping 2022 (4-7 April in Oslo and Lillestrøm) provides the perfect platform for collaboration. As such, the three firms are inviting students and shipping firms to a ‘hackathon’.
The students will be challenged to use the calculator API to solve a real-life broker challenge and present compelling advice
Kicking off on the first day (Nor-Shipping’s opening day) initiative which is both physical and virtual, to encourage maximum participation runs through to the third day afternoon. The students will be challenged to use the calculator API to solve a real-life broker challenge and present the most compelling advice to the jury, while companies will look at how they can integrate the calculator into their existing models. The result of the respective challenges, and the winners, will be unveiled on 7 April at the Katapult Ocean Conference.
Smashing silos
Fearnleys’ Kilen says the initiative will build bridges between established companies and the next generation of industry talent, while also demonstrating the benefits of collaboration and how sharing and utilising data can unlock both business value and environmental gains.
He notes, “This hackathon focuses on the need for industry collaboration; we share our emissions prediction machine and we ask what is acceptable data quality for such calculators to be used proactively to reduce shipping emissions? The hackathon sets an example of a new way of working. We hope this type of activity can open discussions to enable more collaborative innovation and help take industry digitalisation to new heights.”
#hACTION time
The hackathon plays on the main theme of Nor-Shipping 2022, taking positive business #ACTION within the ocean space, and has been christened “#hACTION for sustainable shipping”.
Delegates can find out more about the initiative at a special stand within Nor-Shipping’s 22,000 sq. m of exhibition halls in Lillestrøm.
