The market conditions and the regulatory framework for the shipping industry and shipyards are changing profoundly. In response, shipyards need to build up the capacity to assess the environmental footprint of their yard-activities and the ship to inform their stakeholders in a transparent, understandable, comprehensive, and trustworthy way. While the environmental footprint of the operational phase of a ship can be covered sufficiently by existing standards, the non-operational footprint of the shipyard processes and the integrated materials and components remain a black box. It is the ambition of this project to drastically change the as-is situation and to make the impact measurable and thereby drive progress toward circular, zero impact shipping over the full circle of life of a ship. Therefore, CirclesOfLife will develop, test, and validate a general methodology and framework applicable to all European shipyards enabling to close the gaps in assessing the environmental performance of the shipyards and the ships they design, build, maintain, retrofit or recycle. CirclesOfLife will go beyond state of the art by defining a scientifically sound SEPI-methodology and Cradle2Cradle Ship Passport and will test and validate its applicability in day-to-day business of shipyards and suppliers in several use-cases, ranging from new building- to repair-and maintenance- to recycling yards. Moreover, CirclesOfLife follows a clear pathway towards market introduction and societal impact supported by Surfrider and ShipBreaking Platform as independent and trustworthy NGOs. Based on the described measures, CirclesOfLife pursues to offer a widely accepted standard enabling shipyards, maritime equipment manufacturers, shipping companies, finance institutions and other stakeholders to compare the environmental footprint of ships and shipyards

The scope of this proposal, as requested by the call, is to organise two competitions for transport research awards to be announced at the TRA conference in 2022: - a young researcher competition with the goal of stimulating the interest in the field of sustainable transport among young researchers and students. - a competition for senior researchers in the field of innovative transport concepts based on results only from EU-funded projects.

The HELENUS project will build, integrate and demonstrate a 500kW solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) module operating in cogeneration (combined heat and power) mode, in an MSC World class series ocean cruise vessel. The SOFC will be fully integrated- spatially, electrically, and thermally- into the ship design. SOFCs are the most efficient chemical energy converters available today, and are also highly fuel-flexible- thereby remaining highly relevant for the future of waterborne transport. The HELENUS demonstrator will achieve a TRL of 7 at the end of the project, with extended field testing already planned to reach TRL8 by 2028-2029. Success of this project will enable upscaling of mature SOFC technology in ocean cruise liners to as high as 20MW, by as early as 2029. This can unlock over 23% total fuel savings (assuming a hybrid 20MW SOFC+60MW ICE energy system) over a state-of-the-art energy system with only ICEs. The HELENUS consortium involves diverse and accomplished stakeholders representing the entire value chain from technology development to field implementation- creating a rapid pathway towards exploitation and commercialisation. HELENUS will also undertake extensive simulation, experimental (using an 80kW scaled-down SOFC module), and analytical efforts to demonstrate the applicability of the developed SOFC solution (i) upon significant scale-up (10 MW and beyond), (ii) over duty cycles of alternate applications such as dredging- and offshore- vessels, and (iii) using carbon-neutral fuels with potential for future maritime uptake. Experimental results will be complemented by application case- and lifecycle performance- analyses to assess the broader impact of the technology on waterborne transport. Therefore, HELENUS creates a technological and regulatory roadmap towards a maritime future with scaled-up clean energy systems operating on renewable fuels – thereby fostering innovation and significantly boosting the competitiveness of the EU maritime industry