The Maritime Day, annually organised in the rich maritime heritage city of Mariehamn at the Åland Island, is an event that gathers the maritime industry´s top leaders at one place to discuss, share interesting presentations and network. This year, Wärtsilä and Zero Emission Marine (ZEM) were one of the main partners of the exhibition and seminar arranged by Ålands Sjöfart, in cooperation with Ålands landskapsregering, Alandia and DNV.
Flexible and tailor-made solutions
The main topics of the event were environment, digitalization, and cyber security. ZEM´s and Wärtsilä´s contribution to the discussion was a presentation held by Kenneth Widell, Senior Project Manager for ZEM regarding the ZEM project and its main agenda, as well as a key-note speech presented by Kaj Portin, General Manager Sustainable Fuels, about the topic “The future is Green, Digital and Electric”.
Shipping will follow the money trail in the green transition. This means that the total cost of ownership will ether be induced by force in terms of regulation or with a carrot attracting businesses to go green in order to build a better business case, Kenneth said during his presentation
The message attracted a lot of interest among the audience and sparked the question what a ship owner operating their vessels on heavy fuel oil should do.
“There are no stupid questions and there is no silver bullet for this question. This means that the vessel type, route, age, cargo and other parameters all come into play when evaluating what to do. Vessel and fleet specific holistic solutions are to be considered and Wärtsilä is more than willing to discuss the options and opportunities”, Kenneth answered.
Mercy Ships Race
The Maritime Day kicked off already in the 31 May with a Mercy Ships Race – a charity race gathering funding for the biggest civilian hospital ship. Our Wärtsilä and ZEM representatives were happy to join in on the race and the race kicked-off a successful event. The Maritime Day as a whole sparked multiple interesting discussions.
“I noticed that an increasing number of ship owners seem to have a “feet on the ground approach” when it comes to the green transition, which of course is very positive and means more action.” says Kenneth.
Wärtsilä was present at the event together with the ZEM project and sales representatives and the event as a whole gathered over 100 exhibitors, more than 650 registered participants and even more visitors.
