Two years of shipping, aviation and climate policy – SASHA’s 2nd birthday
As the SASHA Coalition marks its second birthday, our members and team take stock of two years of progress towards net zero shipping and aviation, the European and UK environmental policy landscapes, and SASHA’s next steps advocating for green hydrogen climate solutions for planes and ships.
International collaboration and industry action — shipping’s steps towards net zero
Ram Ganesh Kamatham
Head of Programmes at the Sustainable Shipping Initiative (SSI)
It’s hard to think back over the shipping industry’s progress towards net zero in the two years since SASHA launched, given the last few months alone have seen so many watershed developments.
The agreement of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) Net-Zero Framework in April 2025 is the obvious landmark moment. While unfortunately limited in ambition, it presents a first for any global industry as an actionable plan towards decarbonisation.
Less well-known yet just a few months later, the UN Oceans Conference (UNOC3) in June saw impressive industry commitment to ocean conservation and regeneration. Strategies focused on area-based management and blue-finance in response to climate change’s effects on the ocean, as well as already well-regulated issues such as biofouling and newly-recognised problems such as underwater radiated noise. Solutions spanned collaborative initiatives like the High Ambition Coalition for a Quiet Ocean, and 10,000 Ships for the Ocean initiative, and exciting innovative technologies from maritime start-ups.
Outside of these international fora as well certain up-and-coming industry actors have taken up the mantle of paving the way towards net-zero shipping. The Zero Emission Maritime Buyers Alliance (ZEMBA) launched in 2023 and has already released its second tender for clean maritime energy sources.
The last two years have also seen shipping enter the regulatory spotlight. 2023 saw both the IMO Strategy agreed and FuelEU Maritime regulation passed, while 2024 inaugurated shipping’s inclusion in the EU ETS. Maritime emissions are set to be brought under the UK ETS as well in 2026.
Despite these spikes in private and public action towards international shipping's 2030 breakthrough goal of 5% zero-emission fuel, aiming for 10%, the transition is still hampered by slow progress on demand and finance.
The emphasis moving forward should be on unlocking funds and targeting them only to the innovative companies offering truly sustainable solutions.
The Sustainable Shipping Initiative (SSI) is a knowledge partner of the SASHA Coalition. Read our Industry Insights interview with Ram Ganesh Kamatham to learn more.
Over the past two years, the UK clean aviation landscape has begun to shift from bold talk to ambitious action – but progress remains uneven.
The introduction of the Sustainable Aviation Fuel mandate in 2025 marked a notable milestone, with the UK government requiring 2% of jet fuel demand to be met by SAF, scaling up to 10% by 2030. This move signals intent, but real-world implementation still faces major hurdles. Access to alternative fuels remains limited, and the supply chain is underdeveloped. Moreover, alternative fuels cannot be considered completely clean – even when using truly sustainable feedstocks, it is at best net-zero rather than absolute zero carbon.
The acceleration of alternative fuels is a promising and necessary step, but zero-emission hydrogen technologies – Ecojet’s focus – that offer a long term, future proof solution, desperately lack supportive policy.
While green hydrogen is increasingly recognised as essential for hard-to-electrify sectors, aviation-specific pathways are lacking. Regulatory frameworks for certifying hydrogen-electric aircraft are still catching up, leaving early movers like Ecojet in a holding pattern while waiting for civil aviation authorities to define clear standards. This lag directly impacts investment and timelines for operators seeking to pioneer sustainable solutions.
Yet the past two years have also seen a growing chorus of voices calling for change – SASHA among them. As a coalition, we’ve helped raise awareness that decarbonising aviation is not just desirable, but possible. We’re proud to be part of that shift. With the right policy frameworks, the UK has a real opportunity to lead in zero-emission aviation.
Ecojet is a SASHA Coalition member. Read our Industry Insights interview with Liudmyla Slobodianiuk and CEO Brent Smith to learn more.
The European Clean Industrial Deal — where does SASHA stand in the new EU landscape?
Aurelia Leeuw
Director of EU Policy, SASHA Coalition
The EU has been through tumultuous times since SASHA was first founded. Just over a year ago the end of the first Von der Leyen Commission saw a marked shift in European climate policy. The June 2024 elections handed the President a second term but replaced the Greens in the governing coalition with the hard right, while keeping members of the social democrats and the liberals.
Very quickly we saw the Commission, both voluntarily and under pressure from the Parliament, backtracking on policies that had only recently been adopted, and that constituted some of Europe’s most climate ambitious legislation delivered via the Green Deal.
It is this context that has proved the SASHA Coalition timelier than ever. Europe is even more impervious to climate NGOs than before, while big industry incumbents enjoy ever greater sway in the Clean Industrial Deal era.
But the party that is least represented and yet the lynchpin of the clean industrial movement is the growing body of frontrunning companies striving to lead their respective sectors into a green future – like the SASHA members. Their interests do not align with those of dominant heavyweights comfortable with a polluted status quo, yet the latter drowns out the needs of the disruptors promising a path that couples climate and industrial resilience.
That is why it’s so important to unite these voices and turn up the volume. SASHA does just this, and the unique cross-sectoral nature of its alliance makes it an impactful addition to the voices calling for policy change that brings sustainability targets in sight and provides a healthy investment landscape to deliver innovative solutions.
There are key opportunities to show up for the bold pioneers of clean industry on the horizon. Most notably the 2026 EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) revision could expand and strengthen emission pricing, and the Sustainable Transport Investment Plan (STIP) this autumn could secure innovators long-term access to much-needed finances.
But this is far from a given: it is the Commission that will determine whether these companies are allowed to make the contribution to our collective future that they’re itching to realise. The Commission’s decisions in the next two years will set the direction of travel for climate action for the next decade and beyond.
The SASHA Coalition two years in, and what’s next for green shipping and aviation?
Aoife O’Leary
Founder and Director, SASHA Coalition
We founded the SASHA Coalition two years ago in response to a number of gaps in the green shipping and aviation landscapes. Twelve committed members, five knowledge partners, (nearly) four staff members and a Brussels office later, I’m incredibly proud of the progress our team has made intervening on these issues with unwavering ambition and sharp pragmatism.
As ever though, there is still a long path ahead.
The SASHA Coalition stepped onto the scene to unite shipping and aviation in a powerful collective and cross-sectoral voice. These industries have more in common than it might seem at first: both are hard-to-electrify, international in nature, long-neglected in transition strategies, lagging in their progress towards Paris goals, and in need of green hydrogen to achieve net zero. We saw an opportunity to drive collaboration for robust climate action.
But above all SASHA was created to clarify hydrogen’s role in the energy transition. The last years have seen increasing recognition that green hydrogen presents the only truly sustainable fuel pathways for aviation and shipping, a narrative shift that SASHA has meaningfully contributed to.
As ever though, there are still bumps in the road. The policy consensus hasn’t yet coalesced around green hydrogen solutions and biofuels continue to enjoy outsized policy support despite already enjoying well-established markets and value chains. This means that without targeted regulation they are liable to absorb more financial support than is proportionate to their role in the transition, to the detriment of the more important green hydrogen solutions.
Biofuels’ environmental value should be viewed with clear eyes, accounting for potentially high emissions from indirect land use change, ecological damage as well as risks to food security. The same holds true for the finite opportunity they offer industrial competitiveness and resilience, due to projected future price volatility, and the risk of creating import dependency as feedstocks run thin.
Meanwhile some still push for our limited supplies of green hydrogen to go to easily electrifiable sectors like road transport and household heating.
All this to say that while the green hydrogen policy gap has narrowed significantly, it is still not closed. Regulation still doesn’t reflect the reality of the risks and benefits associated with the solutions on the table, and support for producers is neither adequately targeted nor commensurate with green hydrogen fuels’ climate credentials and the uneven playing field they continue to push ahead on.
What lies ahead for SASHA? As our membership grows so too does the power we have to intervene in replacing faulty narratives with robust, ambitious policy that supports our trailblazing members and climate alike.
Progress is not always consistent across the board, and while e-fuel policy has taken some steps in recent years, zero carbon emission technologies are still under-supported. Where are the mandates for zero carbon emission flight technologies, and the infrastructure to make their roll out a reality? Where are the targets for uptake of absolute zero maritime solutions?
Expect from SASHA and its members in the coming years the same boldness getting the pioneering green shipping and aviation leaders to the policymakers who need to hear them, and the same committed advocacy for pragmatic and ambitious regulation, particularly with such landmark moments as the ETS revision and STIP on the horizon. Watch this space.
