今天我们有幸与Silverstream首席执行官Noah Silberschmidt对话 ，了解他对于航运业正在面临的一系列重大挑战的观点，以及Silverstream是如何帮助船东和运营商们实现脱碳目标的。
Q回溯到十年前，是何种因素促使您决心创立Silverstream公司 ?
A创立Silverstream公司的初衷是想将一种真正独特且创新的清洁技术推向市场，以提高船舶效率，支持航运业的可持续性发展。
空气润滑技术在19世纪初被首次提出，而Silverstream正是在此基础上不断地创新并完善这个概念，在成功获得相关技术专利后，实现了该项技术的规模化与商业化。在此过程中，我们还通过了独立的第三方验证，优秀的数据证明了我们的解决方案在燃料节省和碳排放减少方面的显著效果。
Silverstream从创立伊始就致力于为航运业带来变革。我们用了10年多时间打造了一个还在不断壮大的全球团队，志在为航运脱碳做出更多的贡献，这让我感到非常自豪。
Q如何看待当前业界关于航运脱碳的争论?
A回望在过去短短几年内人们面对航运脱碳这一议题的态度转变是耐人寻味的。我们能够清晰地看到，航运脱碳从一个行业边缘问题上升到了一个主流的商业问题和战略方针，成为了一个行业亟需解决的关键议题。
例如碳强度指标CIIX，如果不采取有效行动，每年都会有很多船队在年底的核算后将被判定为违反该排放规则。
对于有些企业来说，这些挑战可能会影响其正常发展。能帮助他们解决这类问题我们感到非常振奋！从另一个角度来说，我认为这些挑战同样也是行业变革的巨大动力。重点在于我们如何抓住这一机遇，进行长期有效的转型升级，而不是着眼于一些只顾眼前利益的短时速效方案。
事实上，Silverstream已经开始着手解决船舶设计效率这一基本挑战。任何一位从事航海相关工作的人士都深知，由新型燃料驱动的高效船舶的未来将是一片坦途与光明。
Q您认为自Silverstream公司成立以来，都发生了哪些变化?
ASilverstream成立于十多年前，相比那时，围绕着清洁技术的探讨已经发生了巨大的转变， 我们不再专注于以设计理论值向行业证明解决方案的有效性，而是通过与业内领先的船东和运营商开展实际合作，以实际数据来验证其在船舶上的有效性。
行业监管无疑是推动这种巨变的关键因素。在实践层面上，现有船舶能效指数EEXI是充满变数的，而我们的技术可以帮助现役船舶”跳过”逐年收紧的相关规定，直接满足最终的规定水平。更重要的是，我们也看到了船东和运营商的需求，他们想要顺着正确的方向而采取行动，以达到他们的脱碳目标。
正是由于这些因素，我们现在能够携手航运各细分市场的行业领袖和蓝筹公司进行合作，其中包括Maersk、MSC、Grimaldi和Shell等。
Q最后，您能谈谈对Silverstream未来发展以及近几年的业务展望吗?
A我们对公司的发展轨迹非常满意，目前公司的累计订单额已超过1亿美元。从最初专注于验证系统的有效性，到现在我们已经成功地使Silverstream®系统成为了一项经过验证的、成熟的、能够切实为航运企业实现脱碳目标的解决方案。
我个人也为Silverstream在受到全球疫影响时所表现出的韧性感到自豪。团队根据实际情况调整了工作方式，在满足客户与项目要求的同时，也保障了我们员工的个人健康。
需要特别强调的是，我们去年在上海成功开设了中国公司，并大幅提升了英国和中国两地的团队规模。我们非常有机会在2025年前实现500个订单总额的目标，而这也将再次巩固Silverstream全球航运脱碳行业先锋的地位。
CEO Q&A: Perspectives from Noah Silberschmidt
Today we sit down with our CEO, Noah Silberschmidt, to get his take on some of the biggest challenges in shipping and how Silverstream is helping owners and operators to profitably tackle their decarbonisation agendas.
Let’s go back to the beginning. Why did you create Silverstream more than a decade ago?
Silverstream began with the idea of bringing to market a truly unique and innovative clean technology to improve vessel efficiency and support the maritime sector’s sustainability trajectory.
By pioneering and perfecting a concept like air lubrication – which was first described in the 1800s – Silverstream has been able to patent, scale up and commercialise a technology that is elegant in its simplicity, but that drives very tangible net fuel and emissions savings that we have proven through third party verification.
Our team is passionate about enabling change for the industry’s largest players. It feels fantastic that, little more than a decade on from our founding, we have a growing and global team that is making a genuine contribution to decarbonisation efforts.
What do you make of the current debate on decarbonisation in shipping?
It’s interesting to reflect on how attitudes have changed over even a period as short as the last couple of years. We’ve seen decarbonisation go from a fringe topic discussed by pioneers to a key commercial consideration for the future.
It’s exciting to be providing a solution that can solve challenges when those challenges are arguably verging on existential for some companies.
Looking at the Carbon Intensity Indicator, for example, we can see that without action, a huge portion of the global fleet falls foul of the rules every year through to the end of the current implementation period. This will be a huge impetus for change, and it’s critical that we grasp this moment to make the long-term shifts we need rather than pursue short-term wins.
Effectively, Silverstream is making a contribution to solving the fundamental challenge of vessel design efficiency and, as anyone who has spent time in the marine environment can tell you, the future of highly efficient ships powered by new fuels is incredibly exciting to imagine.
How would you say things have changed since Silverstream was founded?
Silverstream was founded over a decade ago, and in that time the atmosphere around clean technologies has completely changed.
We are no longer trying to prove to the industry that our solution works, but instead working on a practical basis with leading owners and operators to see how they can implement it on a vessel or fleet.
Part of this is clearly being driven by regulation, which is a key area where we see massive change versus a decade ago. On a practical level, EEXI is interesting because our technology can help vessels leap straight past the tightening year-on-year requirements to the end point of the current regulation.
Importantly, we are also seeing demand from owners and operators who want to do the right thing in line with their targets.
A combination of these factors is why we are now able to work with industry leaders and blue-chip organisations within each of shipping’s many market segments, including MSC, Carnival, Maersk, Grimaldi and Shell.
Finally, can you talk a little bit about Silverstream’s growth and where the next few years might take you?
We are very pleased with the trajectory we are on, which has recently seen us surpass $100m in cumulative order intake. We have firmly moved from proving that our technology works as an outside solution, to being a key part of the basket of proven solutions that is taking our industry to a decarbonised future.
I am also personally proud of the resilience that Silverstream showed through the pandemic, where we were able to adapt our ways of working and output to the new reality we all experienced, while protecting the wellbeing of our staff.
We opened an office in Shanghai in the last year and have expanded our teams in the UK and China considerably. We are still on track to achieve our goal of 500 orders by 2025 which will again firmly cement Silverstream’s position as a mainstream solution for shipping’s decarbonisation trajectory.
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