«Let’s Communicate» seminar on green and safe shipping held in Oslo

Representatives from EUSBSR met with Norwegian maritime actors to show strategic and financial possibilities as well as concrete projects for Norwegian actors that want to become involved in Baltic Sea Region cooperation. The future of shipping, its technologies and competences - were also discussed and presented. 

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The Baltic Sea Region (BSR) was shown as an interesting region for development of new green solutions at the conference held at Norwegian Shipowners’ Association in Oslo, Norway. Ms. Ann Irene Saeternes, Head of European Affairs in Eastern Norway County Network, national contact point for Interreg Baltic Sea Region Programme, and General Secretary of BSSSC, informed the crowd of Interreg funding possibilities and the new round of funding possibilities with deadline 9 April 2018.  To give the participants further insight into the framework for Baltic Sea cooperation and Interreg projects, an introduction to the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region was given by Odd Godal, European Commission, DG Regio. Mr Godal is a Norwegian national expert to the EU. Further introduction to the possibilities of green shipping within the EUSBSR was given by Policy Area Ship and Policy Area Safe - Cilia Sonne Allermann, Head of Section, Danish Maritime Authority and Jouni Lappalainen, Finnish Transport Safety Agency. Jon Eiof Jonson from the Norwegian Meteorological Institute, who is participating in the project EnVisum, gave concrete example of a Norwegian actor in an Interreg project. The project seeks to track and measure the environmental impact of low emission shipping. 

The seminar also had several actors presenting their work and assessment on greener technologies, making the shipping industry greener and more efficient. Andrius Sutnikas, Klaipeda Science & Technology Park, Lithuania, presented the Go LNG project, a project that focuses on developing Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) competence and value chain in the BSR. Risk management company DNV-GL presented their assessments on the future of shipping, especially focusing on autonomous vessels and green and clean shipping. Their representative, Bjørn Johan Vartdal, said shipping is already, by far, the greenest way of transporting goods compared to land or air travel. He was also skeptical to the data capacity in networks to be able to fully remote control ships from land. Comments from the audience included remarks that the shipping industry should be more offensive in its greener energy choices, and a representative from Rolls Royce Marine commented that remotely controlled ships are possible with today’s data capacity – at least close to port. The conclusion seemed to be that a combination of autonomous and remote controlled is the way to go. 

With technology change comes changes required to competence of staff. To meet the future’s competence requirements an expert on the field was invited to present her research. Tine Viveka Westerberg, Assistant Professor at University College of South-East Norway and EU expert on Skills and Career Development in the Blue Economy has, through her research, revealed that the ‘smart sea farer’ needs competences such as: Management of new cultures, Human Resource Management, Change management, Knowledge management, Client management, Rules and regulations, Role as link between onshore and offshore, Economic understanding, and Project management. To meet these new demands the curriculums must be updated and the scholars teaching the sailors to-be need to be updated as well. 
The seminar ended with a panel discussion where there was consensus to not fight the new technologies arriving, but to adapt to the new change and rise up to the new challenges. The maritime actors interested in joining Interreg projects were encouraged to contact Norwegian national contact point of Interreg, Ms. Ann Irene Saeternes. Jan Eiof Jonson from the Norwegian Meteorological Institute encouraged everyone to join the 
Baltic Sea Days in St. Petersburg 22-23 March. 

The seminar was hosted by the BSSSC Chair, the Eastern Norway County Network, as a part of the “Let’s Communicate” project along side The Shipping & Offshore Network. The latter is also a partner in the Go LNG project. The "Let's Communicate" projects aims to communicate the EUSBSR to all partners of the strategy. 
To see the presentations please find them in this Dropbox link. 

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