The Smart, Sustainable & Green Shipbuilding 2026 Keynote Speakers Event took place on 3 June 2026 during Posidonia 2026 in Athens, Greece, bringing together leading voices from the maritime, shipbuilding, policy, digitalisation and sustainability sectors to discuss the future of greener vessel engineering and shipyard transformation.
Organised with the support of Circles of Life, Green Marine Europe, EcoShipYard and WEGEMT, the event created a timely platform for dialogue on how the maritime industry can accelerate the transition towards smart, circular and environmentally responsible shipbuilding. The keynote programme addressed the future of vessel engineering, green shipyards, maritime digitalisation, international trends shaping EU shipyards, and policy frameworks for a resilient and sustainable maritime future.
A strong contribution was made by the EcoShipYard project, which presented its work on empowering EU shipyards and shipowners with practical tools to assess the environmental impact of ships and shipyard processes. EcoShipYard focuses on the non-operational life of ships, including materials, shipyard processes, construction, refit and end-of-life, addressing the current lack of standardised tools for measuring and comparing shipyard environmental performance and circularity.
During the session, the project highlighted its key innovation pillars: the Shipyard Environmental Performance Index (SEPI), the Ship Material Passport, the Life Cycle Assessment and Life Cycle Costing toolkit, and the EcoShipYard digital platform. These tools are designed to support shipyards, shipowners and authorities in benchmarking performance, identifying emission hotspots, improving decision-making and advancing circularity across the full lifecycle of waterborne assets.
The presentations also underlined the importance of digital twin approaches, process simulation, environmental performance indicators and material traceability as enablers of the EU shipyard of the future. Through its use cases, EcoShipYard is validating solutions across steel shipyards, composite shipbuilding, retrofitting and general shipyard processes, contributing to a more sustainable, competitive and resilient European shipbuilding sector.
The event concluded with a strong message of collaboration: transforming the green maritime industry of tomorrow requires coordinated action today. By bringing together researchers, industry representatives, shipyards, shipowners, classification societies, policymakers and maritime innovation networks, the Posidonia keynote event reinforced the role of cross-sector cooperation in driving the transition towards smart, sustainable and green shipbuilding.
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant agreement no. 101138730. UK participation in the EcoShipYard Project is funded by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) under the UK government’s Horizon Europe guarantee [grant number 10120898].
