Reed Smith seeks industry insights on future of sustainable fuel sources as part of new survey

Indus­try pro­fes­sion­als are being invit­ed to con­tribute their insights on the future of sus­tain­able fuel sources, as part of a new sur­vey spear­head­ed by glob­al law firm Reed Smith.

The ini­tia­tive seeks to gath­er per­spec­tives and pre­dic­tions from pro­fes­sion­als across the entire trans­porta­tion sec­tor. This includes, but is not lim­it­ed to, those work­ing in avi­a­tion, ship­ping, logis­tics, man­u­fac­tur­ing, util­i­ties, and envi­ron­men­tal ser­vices.

Richard Hakes, chair of Reed Smith’s Trans­porta­tion Indus­try Group, said: “The indus­try has expe­ri­enced sig­nif­i­cant changes over the past decade, dri­ven by tech­no­log­i­cal advances, reg­u­la­to­ry devel­op­ments, and envi­ron­men­tal tar­gets. Events such as the glob­al pan­dem­ic and geopo­lit­i­cal fac­tors have fur­ther empha­sized the need for fore­sight and adapt­abil­i­ty.”

“Deter­min­ing the opti­mal solu­tion in terms of cost, safe­ty, stor­age, and scal­a­bil­i­ty remains a chal­lenge. Against the back­drop of ambi­tious tar­gets – such as the Euro­pean Green Deal which aims to slash trans­port emis­sions by 90% by 2050 – the indus­try is now grap­pling with deci­sions that will shape its tra­jec­to­ry.”

The sur­vey seeks input on renew­able ener­gy sources, includ­ing the per­cep­tions of sus­tain­able options, poten­tial chal­lenges, bar­ri­ers, and antic­i­pat­ed time­lines for a com­plete tran­si­tion to sus­tain­able fuel. The sur­vey takes less than five min­utes to com­plete and is com­plete­ly anony­mous.

Pre­lim­i­nary feed­back from the respon­dents sug­gests that close to half the indus­try is poised to embrace dual fual as a tran­si­tion­al solu­tion with­in the next five years.

Respond­ing to the num­bers, Thor Maalouf, part­ner at Reed Smith, said: “It’s a dynam­ic land­scape. As we col­lect more data, I’m curi­ous to wit­ness the poten­tial shift in this per­cent­age. Fos­ter­ing a sus­tain­able indus­try demands a col­lec­tive com­mit­ment to knowl­edge exchange. A joined-up and col­lab­o­ra­tive approach is the most effec­tive path towards sus­tain­able fuels and by pool­ing our exper­tise, we can help steer the indus­try towards a more sus­tain­able and inno­v­a­tive future.”

Nick Austin, part­ner at Reed Smith, stressed the impor­tance of a diverse range of per­spec­tives, adding: “We aim to cap­ture insights from the full spec­trum of the trans­porta­tion sec­tor. By col­lect­ing data from our clients and beyond, we hope to present results that offer clar­i­ty on indus­try views, pre­dic­tions and chal­lenges.”

To fill in the sur­vey, please click here: https://surveys.reedsmith.com/s/SustainableEnergyTransportation2023/: