A robust green corridor should have well-defined foundational elements. The successful development of a green corridor and its continued sustenance require a set of elements to be clearly and methodically addressed. These elements will ensure the successful launch of any green corridor and mitigate any associated risk. For any green corridor to succeed, the following elements are critical and need to be clearly laid out during the pre-feasibility and feasibility assessment. There are numerous ways to define the foundational elements and the details could vary based on the specifics of the green corridor, but the broad emphasis should be on the four points listed below.

Conditions that Enable the Formation of Green Corridors

The initial selection process for green corridors is crucial. For a route to be selected as a candidate for a green corridor, it needs to have the potential for large-scale decarbonization, thereby creating the necessary impact to help the shipping sector achieve its decarbonization goals. This also needs to be feasible from an implementation viewpoint.

The selection of a green corridor is a very complex process and needs to be based on “Real-world” data that have undergone rigorous ground truthing. Each green corridor needs to undergo a detailed feasibility study that answers the following questions:

1. What is the vision and objective of the green corridor? A well-defined end goal is a primary requirement, i.e., what are the corridor’s key performance indicators (KPIs), which help understand metrics of interest to be tracked.
2. What is the timeline for the formation of the green corridor?
3. Is a regulatory framework in place at a Country/Province/Port/City level to support a green corridor? If not, what advocacy needs to be done to create an enabling environment?
4. What is the Business Case for these green corridors? What is the timeline for return on investment (ROIs)
5. What are the funding sources? How much governmental support is available? Green corridors are massive undertakings, and governmental support is paramount, particularly in the port and bunkering infrastructure-green corridor interface.
6. Who are the members of the consortia? Ports, vessel owners/charterers, shipyards, alternate fuel producers, class societies, OEMs, regulatory and governmental bodies. 
7. What are the low/zero-emission fuel options and the potential for scalability for the green corridor?
8. What are the trade routes, vessel segments, and cargo types that operate between ports which are part of the green corridor?

When the above listed questions are answered rigorously, the contours of a “viable” green corridor will reveal itself which will include the following:

1. Location
2. Screening Business Case
3. Consortium
4. Funding Source

What are the critical success factors?

• Credible Fuel Pathways - Successful initiatives will be built on credible fuel pathways, the potential for value chain initiatives, and the feasibility of policy action.
• Business Case - Green Corridors are emission reduction projects but their critical path is based on a sound business model.
• Scale - Corridors should be large enough to embrace all relevant value-chain actors, such as fuel producers, cargo owners, and regulatory authorities. They can provide offtake certainty to fuel producers and enable vessel operators, shipyards, and engine manufacturers to prioritize investment in zero-emission shipping by de-risking the operational environment.
• Funding - The green corridor should have stable funding sources, including governmental support, to help during the take-off phase.
• Certifiable Data - Regular and transparent information with verified, trusted data will also be critical.

In short, success factors are corridor-level consensus on fuel pathways, policy support to help close the cost gap for higher-cost zero-emission fuels, and value-chain initiatives to pool demand as well as transparent, reliable data and reporting.

Other important factors to be evaluated 

Examples of the kind of decisions key stakeholders will be making include:

• How shippers choose to direct cargos through multiple Corridor options
• How shippers report carbon footprint of products moved through a Corridor
• How customers select passenger vessel transportation options based on Corridor reporting
• How local/regional clean energy coalitions incorporate Corridors into their broader strategies (e.g., Green Shipping Corridors as part of Hydrogen Hub strategies)
• How agencies direct grant program funding to support development/expansion of Corridors
• How communities, especially residents in communities with environmental justice concerns, engage with Corridor developers to address priorities and goals of near-port communities

A very important aspect in the development and continuous successful operation of a green corridor is the need for a palette of metrics in place to quantify the decarbonization effect of the initiative. The emissions scope, boundary and metrics will vary based on the jurisdiction of each of these corridors and the level of ambition they aim to achieve.

Life-cycle Emissions Estimation 

Fundamentally, a green corridor’s success is a function of its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction potential and for that to be a controlling metric, the calculations need to be robust and should follow commonly accepted standards such as ISO 14064-1, GHG protocol requirements and other maritime industry specific methodologies. To further improve confidence in the estimation, they may need to be assured or certified by independent third parties.

To improve the robustness of maritime emissions estimations, life-cycle analysis (LCA), which is the estimation from well-to-tank (WTT) and tank-to-wake (TTW) of the fuel related emissions, is the commonly accepted norm for estimating the impact of each value chain stakeholder of the corridor. Each of the value chain stakeholders should clearly demarcate their boundary and consistently calculate their baseline emissions. The baseline emissions profile should be an indication of the current operations prior to conversion to a green corridor. For example, what is the emissions estimate currently without the aspects of the green corridor considered, including both a current day snapshot and a future forecast.

Shipyard Emissions

Shipbuilding emissions may not apply to all green corridors but will be a very useful metric to consider when converting existing traditional routes to green ones, since many of these projects will require newbuilds and retrofitting of existing vessels. Shipbuilding emissions can be divided into hull (material and protection) and machinery (main and auxiliary) impacts and play a major role in understanding the emissions over the entire life cycle of a green corridor.

Baseline Emissions Inventory for Port and Vessel Operations

Port emissions inventory will be a major component of the GHG footprint of any port-centric corridor since, fundamentally, the decarbonization will revolve around vessels and port decarbonization which will include electrification of shore-side infrastructure and development of cold ironing facilities to reduce vessel emissions while waiting at the port. Port emissions are typically from mobile sources and then can be divided into the following categories:

      1)      Ocean-going vessels when berthed in the port

      2)      Harbor craft

      3)      Cargo handling of the equipment

      4)      On-road vehicles

      5)      Rail

Ports are such a critical stakeholder in the development of a green corridor, they can take the lead utilizing governmental incentives to decarbonize and signal intent which will help build momentum towards decarbonization of the shipping industry. Currently, U.S. EPA, Environment and Climate Change Canada and other private non- governmental research organizations provide detailed methodologies and guidance on conducting a port inventory. The challenge is that there is very little overlap on methodologies, scope and boundaries, requiring clarification before inventory development since all the ports need to have a commonly accepted baseline inventory with similar assumptions.

Independent Verification

Since the green corridor’s fundamental goal is to achieve carbon emissions reduction, it is important that the methodologies, emission factors, activity data and calculations are certified by an independent third party with a detailed audit trail. There are numerous organizations that certify carbon avoidance and emissions reductions to maintain the environmental integrity of the project.

This will also allow project stakeholders to obtain robust reduction and voluntary carbon credits which could play an important role as a revenue stream and push many of the economically unviable projects into the green.

The assessment will include calculations of baseline GHG emissions or baseline GHG removals by sinks followed by calculations of project GHG emissions and actual net GHG removal by sinks. The process also takes into consideration leakage to arrive at an actual GHG emissions reduction or net GHG removal value.

The infographic below indicates a high-level vision of an operational green shipping corridor. 

•  Decarbonization pathways involve accelerating operational efficiencies and deploying alternative fuels at scale. The industry is diverse, disaggregated and globally regulated.
•  Green Shipping Corridors help facilitate the coordination between stakeholders down to a more manageable size while retaining scale.

Any combination of these fuels and technologies could apply based on the techno-economic feasibility of the corridor in question.