Ports are critical infrastructure and major sources of emissions and air pollutants. Many ports are beginning to set decarbonization goals, but there is little practical guidance on how to achieve them. In this Viewpoint, members of a team working to decarbonize Shoreham Port in the United Kingdom discuss their approach, experiences and challenges, and outline lessons that can be transferred to other ports and industrial clusters.
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Andrew Davies is RM Phillips Freeman Chair in the Science Policy Research Unit at the University of Sussex Business School. He is Principal Investigator on the Local Industrial Decarbonization Plan for Shoreham Port and known for research on innovation, learning and capabilities building in large infrastructure projects and project-based organizations.
Lydia Harvey is the Head of Environment & Sustainability at Shoreham Port and Project Manager of the Shoreham Port Industrial Cluster. With an MSc in Coastal and Marine Resource Management, Lydia has played a key role in understanding and reducing the environmental impacts of Shoreham Port, from developing its decarbonization strategy to pioneering the end-of-life fishing gear recycling scheme.
Kyle Herman is a research fellow in the Science Policy Research Unit at the University of Sussex. His research is based in global political economy, climate policies and innovation, industrial policy and green growth, firm and country-level climate transitions, anticipatory climate governance, and emissions performance at firm and country levels.
Sam Islam is a systems engineering consultant who has provided port decarbonization expertise to the Shoreham Port project. She has over 10 years of experience working in renewables, international development, offshore oil and gas, and transport. She has worked on international assignments across Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Africa.
Andrew King is Project Manager at Cemex Marine, Southampton with a background of 20+ years in a global seagoing career, most recently as Chief Engineer on the Cemex Go Innovation. Andrew is now working ashore, spearheading a project to deliver a real-world demonstration of a shore power system supported by battery energy storage at Cemex, Shoreham.
Graeme MacLean CEng, FIMechE, is Associate Director in Ricardo’s Strategic Growth and Development team. He has over 25 years of expertise covering transport technologies, ports and maritime, fleet decarbonization, hydrogen, related fuels and renewables. Customers have included the International Maritime Organization, international non-governmental organizations, the UK Department for Transport, and international automotive businesses.
Maria Nieto is a senior consultant at Ricardo and is the Project Manager from Ricardo’s side in the Shoreham Port Local Industrial Decarbonization Plan. She has an MSc in Sustainable Energy Systems from the University of Edinburgh and a BSc in Chemical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin. She has had a key role in several international projects focusing on technical and economic modelling to support the decarbonization of the power sector.
Tom Willis was appointed Chief Executive at Shoreham Port in November 2019. Alongside his work in maritime, he has extensive leadership experience in logistics gained at Royal Mail and aviation at Heathrow. Tom holds an MBA from Bayes Business School and an MSc in Coaching and Behavioural Change from Henley Business School.
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Davies, A., Herman, K.S., Harvey, L. et al. Navigating decarbonization at Shoreham Port Industrial Cluster. Nat. Rev. Clean Technol. 1, 313–319 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44359-024-00007-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s44359-024-00007-z
