ShipCycle

ShipCycle adresses the challenge of dismantling end-of-life ships in a safe, sustainable, and circular way within the Baltic Sea Region. Today, many vessels are sent outside Europe for scrapping under conditions that harm workers and the environment. Meanwhile, EU regulations demand certified facilities, but regional capacity is low and fragmented. Our project is needed by local and regional authorities, port operators, business support organisations, and maritime companies. These actors could play a central role in creating a circular ship recycling market, but they lack an overview of capacities, clear policy guidance, and opportunities to cooperate across borders. What stops them is a mix of barriers: high costs compared to overseas scrapping, uncertainty about future regulations, and limited awareness of how different national strengths could be combined into a regional solution. ShipCycle helps overcome these barriers by mapping the ecosystem of actors and infrastructures, facilitating policy dialogues, and directly engaging companies through cross-border visits and exchanges. Output will be a joint roadmap for circular ship recycling in the region. The outcome goes beyond the target groups: citizens in small port communities benefit from new green jobs, the wider maritime industry gains access to recovered materials, and society profits from reduced pollution and more responsible resource use.