Retrofit-ready ships to benefit from UCL climate-risk assessment tool
Some vessels, such as Wasaline's hybridised Aurora Botnia, will prove easier to retrofit than others (Souce: Wasaline)
Researchers at University College London (UCL) have developed a vessel-level climate-risk assessment framework that highlights retrofit potential as a key factor in determining the long-term resilience of shipping assets. The Climate Resilience Framework is intended to help shipowners, charterers, banks and investors assess how individual vessels may perform as environmental regulations tighten and new marine fuel markets evolve.
Unlike many existing assessment methods, which focus on historical emissions or current compliance status, the UCL model evaluates vessels against 384 combinations of regulatory, fuel-price and technology-cost scenarios.
The researchers applied the framework to more than 2,000 commercial ships from the Clarksons World Fleet Register, generating risk scores based on a range of plausible future operating conditions.
The analysts reveal that the potential for a vessel to be upgraded can have a greater influence on climate resilience than its market segment. The framework uses the real-option theory to place economic value on adaptability through measures such as fuel switching, retrofits and deferred investment decisions.
According to the researchers, ships with credible upgrade pathways are better positioned to withstand future regulatory and commercial pressures than vessels with limited conversion potential.
Marie Fricaudet, senior research fellow at UCL Shipping and Oceans Research Group and lead author of the study, said: “Existing assessments typically rely on a limited set of scenarios and don’t capture the value of flexibility under uncertainty.”
The research suggests that conventional vessels lacking practical retrofit options rank among the sector's highest-risk assets. By contrast, retrofit readiness, energy efficiency improvements and technologies such as wind-assisted propulsion can significantly improve resilience.
The study also found that some efficient older vessels and conventional or LNG dual-fuel ships may represent lower-risk investments because they retain flexibility to adapt as regulations and fuel economics develop.
The framework arrives as the International Maritime Organization continues to develop measures aimed at achieving net-zero greenhouse-gas emissions from international shipping by or around 2050.
But UCL argues that climate-transition risk is increasingly becoming a ship-by-ship valuation process, with retrofit capability emerging as one of the most important indicators of future asset value and operational viability.
