(From left to right: Jan Petzel, CFO, STAX Engineering; Dr. John Holmes, Chief Operations Officer, STAX Engineering; Lex Hanham, Business Development Manager, Associated British Ports (ABP); Max Harris, Group Head of Strategy & Sustainability, who leads the EVA programme at ABP; Alisha Fredriksson, Co-Founder and CEO, Seabound; Iain Gunn, Commercial and Business Development Manager, Seabound.
ABP’s Port of Southampton welcomed hundreds of innovators across business, policy and academia to its latest Energy Ventures Accelerator (EVA) event which formed a key part of the inaugural Maritime UK Solent Coastal Powerhouse Summit.
The EVA Southampton Innovation Exchange, took place on the first day of the Summit. It featured a speech by Mary Carmen Barrios, Senior Vice President Operations at Wallenius Wilhelmsen and a panel discussion focused on maritime decarbonisation, led by ABP Business Development Manager, Lex Hanham, with a range of expert perspectives from HMM, Sallaum Lines, Carnival UK and UCL’s Energy Institute.
Alastair Welch, ABP’s Regional Director for Southampton, said: “Today, we’ve been able to demonstrate Southampton’s place at the heart of maritime decarbonisation in the UK. Southampton has been a leader in UK port sustainability through being the first port to deploy shorepower at scale and by publishing a comprehensive air quality strategy.
“At ABP, we are committed to leading positive change when it comes to maritime decarbonisation both through our sustainability strategy ‘Ready for Tomorrow’ and initiatives like EVA. We are developing the infrastructure to support green shipping and working with our partners to turn ambition into reality.”
The themes of innovation and sustainability were also reflected in Maritime Minister Mike Kane’s keynote speech at the Summit, who said: “We have just announced our plan for shipping to become net zero by 2050, and it’s great to see ports like ABP embrace these ambitions by going even further and faster to decarbonise.”
“It’s a pleasure to join the Coastal Powerhouse Summit and come together with leading innovators across the industry so we can drive forward the progress needed to clean up maritime, establish the UK as a clean energy superpower and drive economic growth across the country.”
The EVA Southampton Innovation Exchange is part of a nationwide programme – ABP’s Energy Ventures Accelerator, run in partnership with innovation platform Plug and Play. The programme provides a way for ABP to explore opportunities with high potential clean energy hardware startups. Since its launch in June last year, ABP has spoken to hundreds of startups and has run four major innovation events in London, Hull, Cardiff and now – Southampton.
EVA complements ABP’s sustainability strategy, ‘Ready for Tomorrow’, which sets out ABP’s target of achieving Net Zero greenhouse gas emissions from its own operations by 2040, as well as supporting ABP customers’ Net Zero ambitions.
The EVA Southampton Innovation Exchange provided the stage for ABP to announce its intention to work with green maritime innovators Seabound and STAX Engineering to explore opportunities to capture at-berth emissions while vessels are in port. ABP is currently engaging with key shipping customers looking at technical and economic feasibility with a view to deploying the technology in early 2026.
Max Harris, ABP’s Group Head of Strategy & Sustainability, who leads the EVA programme, commented: “I am delighted to announce that as part of ABP’s broader strategic ambitions, we are excited to be working with UK carbon capture startup Seabound and California emissions capture service provider STAX Engineering, who are integrating their solutions to minimise both air pollutants and greenhouse gas emissions – helping to make shipping and ports more sustainable.”
Seabound and STAX Engineering’s technology integrates through a two-step process. First, STAX connects to a ship’s exhaust pipe(s) and filters out 99% of particulate matter and 95% of NOx, releasing a purified gas. Next, the purified gas is directed into Seabound’s capture unit, which isolates and stores the ship’s carbon and sulphur emissions before the cleaned exhaust gas enters the atmosphere, reducing the vessel’s overall greenhouse gas footprint. The two companies have recently announced a trial collaboration at the Port of Long Beach and the Port of Los Angeles in California to offer an end-to-end emissions capture solution to shipping lines.
Alisha Fredriksson, CEO & Co-Founder of Seabound, said: “Shipping is a notoriously difficult industry to decarbonise, which is why collaborations like this one between ABP, Seabound, and STAX can be so impactful and game-changing.
“While our focus at Seabound has traditionally been to capture carbon onboard ocean-going vessels, we’re also excited to leverage our technology for this new opportunity: capturing carbon from ships while they’re in port. By teaming up with ABP to expand deployments of our integrated technology with STAX Engineering at the Port of Southampton, we can offer vessel owners and operators a practical way to reduce emissions—and design a solution that’s scalable port-wide from day one.”
Mike Walker, CEO, STAX Engineering, added: “Our integrated solution can service all vessel configurations without the need for ship modifications or expensive retrofitting. We provide an immediate solution for harmful pollutants, making shipping more sustainable right here and right now.
“At STAX, we firmly believe collaborative innovation with port partners and other technical solutions is the catalyst for cleaner ports worldwide. With our emissions capture and control technology, we’re eager to work alongside ABP and their customers to deliver comprehensive emissions solutions that move the UK closer to a clean-air future.”
During the session, conference guests also heard from a range of clean energy startups, including:
- Seabound – UK startup offering an onboard carbon capture system for vessels, which removes up to 95% of CO₂ from a ship’s exhaust, providing a scalable decarbonisation solution both at berth and at sea.
- STAX Engineering – a US-based company offering cutting-edge emissions capture and control as a service. Its system removes 99% of particulate matter and 95% of NOx while a vessel is at berth, bringing the maritime industry one step closer to a clean-air future.
- XFuel – Spanish startup focused on transforming biomass waste into advanced drop-in fuels, helping to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 85% compared to fossil fuels.
- Armada Technologies – UK startup providing a next-generation passive air lubrication system, which optimises ship efficiency with a smart, low-power solution that adapts to all operating conditions, reducing fuel consumption.
- PuriFire Energy – UK startup which has developed an electrolyser-free methanol production technology, helping to cut CO₂ emissions by up to 95%, leveraging wastewater and waste carbon feedstocks to create sustainable fuels.
- GT Wings – a technology provider designing unique wind propulsion systems to decarbonise the commercial shipping industry. Their AirWing advanced wind propulsion technology reduces fuel consumption and emissions by up to 30%, accelerating the maritime industry’s path to decarbonisation.
Reflecting on the session, Maritime UK Solent Managing Director, Stuart Baker, said: “At Maritime UK Solent, we are big believers in the power of industrial clusters when it comes to creating economic and sustainability benefits.
“It was great to be exposed to so many innovative technologies thanks to the EVA Southampton Innovation Exchange session and I think that our conference has helped set the foundations for many productive conversations to come. It shows that bringing together businesses from across the supply chain, at different levels of maturity, helps generate fresh thinking that can help accelerate progress.”
The Coastal Powerhouse Summit is Maritime UK Solent’s flagship event, organised in partnership with Associated British Ports (ABP), the UK’s largest port operator and Carnival UK, a leading cruise company. In addition to ABP, the Summit included contributions from other major maritime businesses in the Solent such as DP World, Solent Stevedores, and Whitaker Tankers.
The next event in ABP’s EVA calendar will be ABP’s EVA Expo on 13th May at The Royal Institution, which will focus on key successes and learnings from the programme over the past twelve months and its evolution going forward. Event registration details can be found here.
- Ends -
