• Last month International Maritime Organization (IMO) Member States agreed new climate regulations that fell far short of the ambition needed by the industry to meet its targets.

• Without stronger regulation, pioneering green maritime companies will not get the support needed to produce and adopt the cleanest alternative fuels made from green hydrogen.

• Shipping industry and NGOs call on the EU to strengthen policies in the wake of the IMO agreement to enhance maritime competitiveness and meet net zero targets.

Brussels, 7 May 2025: Seven NGOs and industry alliances, together representing 82 clean maritime and green hydrogen industry stakeholders, have written a letter to the European Commission and European Union Presidency urging it to strengthen clean shipping policy in the wake of disappointing regulations agreed last month at the IMO.

The letter’s signatories include the SASHA Coalition, ZESTAs, NABU, Carbon Market Watch, the Green Hydrogen Organisation, ZERO – Associação Sistema Terrestre Sustentável, and Cittadini per l’aria onlus, representing a wide range of voices across the green maritime value chain and non-profits. It highlights failings in the IMO agreement to adequately boost green hydrogen and derived e-fuels, that present the only credible fuel path to clean maritime.

More ambitious IMO measures could have eased existing barriers for the industry’s growth. A stronger price on all shipping pollution and high rewards targeting early green hydrogen fuel adoption would have helped e-fuel producers access the finances needed to increase production, and ships to switch to e-fuels. The weak measures will leave pioneering green companies continuing to struggle to develop, at the expense of global and EU climate goals and European industry.

To amend the IMO measures’ shortcomings, the letter urges the EU Commission to adopt a policy roadmap based on already planned legislation. This would include:

1. Introducing financial mechanisms to support e-fuel producers in the upcoming Sustainable Transport Investment Plan (2025).

2. Expanding the maritime ETS and use revenues to support e-fuels (2026).

3. Strengthening e-fuel uptake targets in the FuelEU Maritime review (2027).

4. Continuing to push for ambitious regulation at the IMO that incentivise e-fuel uptake.

 Aurelia Leeuw, Director of EU Policy at the SASHA Coalition, says:   

“The EU must deliver the policy support that the shipping industry is crying out for and that the IMO failed to secure. There is only one credible path to net zero shipping, and that is using green hydrogen fuels. But without EU support, the maritime sector will not be able to access and adopt these fuels, in turn failing to deliver the potential for industrial competitiveness these innovative sectors promise Europe. In the aftermath of the IMO’s disappointing outcome, there is a window of opportunity for the EU to nurture rather than neglect its nascent green shipping businesses – what’s to win is nothing less than meeting Europe’s climate targets and its Clean Industrial Deal goals.”

Madadh MacLaine, Secretary General of the Zero Emissions Ship Technology Association (ZESTAs), says:  

“From every angle, be it climate, industry, or innovation, it is in the EU's best interest to strengthen clean shipping regulation where the IMO didn't. The IMO measures could have delivered the gust of wind ZESTAs’ members needed to set their next-generation technologies sailing, but instead it opened a gap for solutions that will bake in infrastructure investment in fuels that may do more harm than good: biofuels and LNG.

“ZESTAs calls upon the EU to support rigorous and specific science-based fuel lifecycle analysis methodology at the IMO, to support nascent ZEST industry, penalise pollution, and to strengthen its own targets, for the sake of the shipping industry's future resilience as much as for the climate.”

Lukas Leppert at NABU, The Nature And Biodiversity Conservation Union, says:

“The IMO's limited successes marked a major missed opportunity to cut emissions and accelerate the green maritime industry of the future, but one that the EU is well-poised to correct. Now is the moment to stay true to its reputation as a global leader in ambitious climate legislation and make the most out of the few wins the IMO did deliver to help get the shipping industry to net zero.”

Following the IMO MEPC 83 negotiations that closed on 11 April 2025, the SASHA Coalition expressed disappointment at the weak support for green hydrogen fuels in the agreed measures. On 17 April the Coalition also sent letters to the UK government urging similar action in response to the IMO’s inadequate regulations.

The SASHA Coalition has previously urged the EU Commission to use the Clean Industrial Deal to strengthen its clean maritime policy.

Read the full letter to the European Commission.

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