shipping corridors: the Clydebank Declaration. Its aim is, as anticipated, to create green
corridors for shipping, known as zero-emissions routes, between two or more port pairs.
This agreement is an important starting point which allows not only for a greener
shipping system, but also for the catalyzation, by major trade partners, of land-side
investments which are needed to finance green infrastructures for the interested ports.
The corridor approach, at the same time, incentivizes governments to encourage, or
eventually even require, that those corridors become exclusive paths for zero-emissions
The declaration has decided to refer to these green shipping corridors as “zero-emissions
marine routes”, a decision which has been welcomed by organisations such as the Ocean
Conservancy and Pacific Environment. Its climate campaign director, Madeline Rose,
underlined how this new deal on shipping will require new charging stations at the ports
these vessels frequent. At the same time, Rose also warned Clydebank to solve and avoid
fossil fuel loopholes and delay tactics. In order to achieve that, interim and definitive
benchmarks to phase fossil fuel based shipping are necessary. Another positive feedback
about the agreement came from Nick Brown, CEO of British classification society Lloyd’s
Register. As Brown stated, the Clydebank enables for a full identification of sites where
the first investments in land-based technologies for the production of new fuels could
have the most initial impact: in this sense, the green corridors proposed by the Clydebank
Declaration are crucial initiatives to support first mover viability.