Ocean commerce is the backbone of the world’s economy, transporting 90% of global trade. But it’s also massively inefficient, resulting in carbon emissions amounting to 3% of global anthropogenic greenhouse gases.
Nautilus Labs was founded with the mission to decarbonize the ocean supply chain.
Building our business over the last six years, we have consistently bumped against one of the biggest barriers to achieving this goal: the fundamental framework that underpins the owner and charterer relationship, charter party agreements. These documents bind shipowners and ship charterers in legal relationships that were defined before 21st century technology was available. Subsequently, these frameworks constrain companies from effective collaboration that could maximize economic and environmental efficiency.
As we explained in our joint white paper with BIMCO, relying on contracts that use clauses created generations ago has negative consequences for both parties – and the wider world. It results in an adversarial, zero-sum dynamic that promotes mistrust, ensures suboptimal performance, and keeps the ocean supply chain locked in the pattern of “hurry-up-to-wait” (or “sail-fast-then-wait”) behavior. The net result: excess emissions and reduced profits, to the order of 200M metric tons of CO2 and $30 billion per year of waste.
That’s why Nautilus Labs has launched Green Charter™, our path to breaking down barriers between owners and charterers. Using machine learning-based data streams to implement new legal frameworks within charter party agreements, we’re giving owners and charterers an independent, shared source of truth for their charter parties. Green Charter unifies the interests of counterparties and empowers them to make joint technical and operational decisions for mutually beneficial commercial and environmental outcomes, removing claims from the center of the owner-charterer relationship once and for all.
With this technology, we’ve made a giant leap towards our mission of decarbonizing the ocean supply chain. Green Charter applies the expertise we’ve amassed with data engineering, machine learning, and Digital Twins toward tackling one of the core barriers to maritime decarbonization. But Green Charter is more than the sum of the years we’ve devoted to building leading-edge maritime software – we believe it will usher in a new era for the industry, empowering owners and charterers to engage in transformational ways that benefit business, people, and the planet.
It’s beyond time for the shipping industry to embrace collaboration as the new modus operandi. Decarbonization is a team sport, and we need to come together now if we are to meet the carbon reduction targets set out by the International Maritime Organizations. Join us in changing the way our industry operates for good.
