This project is the first detailed study to focus on the issues of the maritime industry in depth, starting from industrial barriers and valuable components on board to investigating current applications in detail and analysing the viewpoints of industry stakeholders to seek strategic and technological solutions ultimately. This project is also the first to suggest a holistic solution that will rapidly move the industry forward: the database solution that covers all the maritime industry's stakeholders to track up-to-date equipment and component information on marine vessels. On the other hand, this project's suggested solution can only be successful with the involvement and incentives of the policymakers and an industry-wide approach to the supply chain.

Links

"Circular Economy- Increased Value Extraction from End of Life Marine Assets" Full reportLink opens in a new window

Executive Summary

While shipping is classed as one of the most energy-efficient transport modes, it currently lags behind sectors such as aerospace and automotive in terms of circular economy approaches, sustainability, accountability and the applications of technologies that have seen the other sectors excel in those areas above. The Circular economy approach is not well-established in the maritime, and there is a need to "close the loop" to minimise waste and increase the revenue stream. The current linear consumption economy inherent in shipping results in increased costs, improved health, safety and environmental risks and harm efforts in achieving sustainability targets. Ship recycling contributes significantly to reducing the demand for emission of intensive mining of iron ore and new steel production through steel scrap. However, the equipment of ships is currently underutilised, considering their potential for reuse, remanufacturing, and repair.
This project, therefore, aims to tackle this gap by developing a circular economy approach for the maritime industry through i) identifying the barriers to the successful implementation, ii) mapping the high-value and high-risk items onboard ships, iii) identifying the current and potential reuse, remanufacture and recycle rates through investigation of the market iv) identification of technology solutions and creating the overall structure for software and hardware to support the end-of-life strategies for high potential and high-risk items.

Key Findings

1) Even though currently, circular economy is widely perceived as recycling amongst various stakeholders, when explained, the stakeholders find more advanced circular economy principles – such as remanufacturing, reuse, reconditioning, etc. quite favourable. There is a considerable gain potential for ship owners, OEMs, recyclers and almost every stakeholder in the industry. With higher awareness levels, remanufacturing business, in particular, could ace.

2) Many technology solutions are available that would benefit from tracking vessels and onboard components. The easily applicable database solution suggested in the study would form an excellent basis for future improvements while enabling all the features desired at the beginning of this research.

Project Team

Dr Sefer Anil Gunbeyaz (Principal Investigator) is a Chancellor's Fellow (Lecturer) at NAOME. Dr Gunbeyaz's main body of research relates to sustainability in the maritime domain and circular economy. He obtained his PhD through research into the design of ship recycling yards and their optimisation using a simulation tool to develop a framework. In addition to his research in yard design and optimisation, he took part in several projects related to ship recycling, including but not limited to the development of a Sustainable ship recycling industry in Indonesia, the Development of Framework for Sustainable Decommissioning, Sustainable and Safe Ship Recycling in Bangladesh, Identification and Valuation of Equipment and Materials for Reuse, Remanufacturing and Recycling on Marine Assets. In addition to the research, he is also actively developing training for ship recycling workers through the IMO SENSREC and BoatDIGEST projects.

Dr Rafet Emek Kurt (Co-Investigator) is a Senior Lecturer at NAOME. Dr Kurt's current research focuses on human factors, accident investigation, resilience engineering concepts, maritime workarounds, human reliability modelling, ship recycling and offshore decommissioning. Dr Kurt also supported the development of international maritime regulations through attending the International Maritime Organisation's (IMO) Maritime Safety Committee and Marine Environmental Protection Committee meetings. Dr Kurt is currently acting as principal investigator of EU funded SAFEMODE Project and MARED Project, IMO funded SENSREC Project, and British Council funded NEWTON Institutional Links project focusing on the Indonesian ship recycling sector.

Prof Osman Turan (Co-Investigator) is one of the world's leading experts on shipping safety, design for safety covering human factors. Prof Turan has been involved in more than 20 EU projects and was the coordinator of the FP 5 Flowmart Project, the technical coordinator of COMPASS and DIVEST projects. The Co-ordinator of FP7 SEAHORSE project, which received the LR-RINA Maritime safety award in 2017 and 2018 he was awarded TRA vision senior researcher award at TRA 2018 organised by European Commission.

Dogancan Okumus, MSc (Research Assistant), is a PhD candidate at NAOME. He has double engineering degrees in naval architecture and industrial engineering fields and a master's degree in industrial engineering. His PhD studies focus on circular economy and its subtopics, mainly in transportation, machinery, and power generation industries. He has six years of professional engineering practice, and his background includes hands-on experience in several circular economy subtopics such as reusing, remanufacturing and rebuilding products and components.

Dr Onder Canbulat (Research Associate)
Dr Canbulat was a research associate at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK. His research focused on the Integrated Energy Efficiency of Shipping. He utilised Bayesian Belief Networks (BBNs) and ARENA simulation methods to minimise a ship's energy consumption during integrated port operations in his PhD. He undertook a methodological approach to analysing various case studies in the shipping sector. Furthermore, He completed my MSc dissertation on Green Ports during my time in the Global Supply Chain Management Programme at the Brunel University of London between 2013-and 14. He currently works for the UK Chamber of Shipping as Decarbonisation Expert.

Dr Evanthia Giagloglou (Research Associate)
Dr Evanthia Giagloglou is a certified Ergonomist from the Chartered Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors and an Associated Member of the Institution of Environmental Science. She is working as a researcher at Human Factors and Safety centre at Strathclyde University. Her academic background combines disciplines of Cognitive Ergonomics (PhD), New technologies (MSc) and Environmental Science. She has experience working on international EU and WHO (World Health Organisation) projects, covering safety topics and inequalities of risk and injuries at work. She has written and presented several scientific papers and technical reports dedicated to Safety Standards, New technologies in occupational settings, Decision Making, neuro-ergonomics approaches and sustainable work.