Marine

International shipping moves nearly 90% of world trade and is responsible for roughly three percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Regulatory pressure on the sector is intensifying. The IMO’s 2023 strategy targets at least a 20% reduction in shipping’s annual GHG emissions by 2030, striving for 30%, and at least 70% by 2040 and striving for 80% against 2008 levels, with the goal of net zero by or around 2050. The EU’s FuelEU Maritime regulation, already in force since January 2025, adds a complementary set of compliance requirements for ships above 5.000 gross tonnes calling at EU ports.¹

This regulatory shift is reshaping how vessels are financed. Under the Poseidon Principles, a framework through which signatory banks assess the climate alignment of their ship finance portfolios against IMO targets, carbon intensity performance is now a factor in lending decisions, not just an environmental metric. For shipowners, this means that demonstrating a credible pathway toward lower-emission operations is becoming increasingly relevant to access ship-financing capital, alongside regulatory compliance and vessel economics.²

Demand for marine fuel cells reflects this shift. Market estimates vary by scope and methodology: more conservative projections put the market at roughly $450 million by 2030 (from $215 million in 2023),³ while broader estimates value it at approximately $2.5 billion in 2023, growing toward $5.7 billion by 2032.⁴ Even at the lower end, the estimates point to clear and sustained growth.

The dominant technology for marine propulsion and auxiliary power is the internal combustion engine (ICE), traditionally running on marine fuels derived from oil. An emerging alternative replaces marine diesel with electro-fuels in the same combustion engines, but this approach inherits the fuel efficiency limitations of combustion-based propulsion, limiting how far it can close the gap to genuinely low-emission operation.