This interview is a part of the Inside the Mind of the CEO collection, which explores a variety of important selections confronted by chief executives world wide.
Maritime
ports
have
lengthy
been
engines
of
the
world
economic system.
Of
essential
significance
as
buying and selling
and
provide
chain
hubs,
they
have
a
deep
historical past
in
commerce,
with
some
courting
again
hundreds
of
years.
Now,
they’re
rising
as
leaders
of
a
Twenty first-century
tech-enabled
vitality
transition.
Responsible
for
80%
of
worldwide
commerce,
ports
host
and
service
a
vary
of
adjoining
industries.
They’re
uniquely
positioned
at
the
nexus
of
an
ecosystem
of
companies
urgently
responding
to
rising
applied sciences,
geopolitical
dangers,
and
local weather
change.
The
local weather
disaster,
in
explicit,
has
been
a
catalyst
of
innovation
for
Associated
British
Ports
(ABP),
which
handles
a
quarter
of
the
UK’s
seaborne
commerce.
The
firm
has
been
privately
held
since
1982,
and
it’s
now
owned
by
a
combine
of
pension
and
sovereign
wealth
funds.
ABP’s
21
port
places
and
8,600-acre
land
portfolio
are
central
to
its
technique:
rethinking
and
repurposing
land
use
for
renewable
vitality
tasks
like
offshore
wind
and
photo voltaic
set up,
and
exploring
numerous
enterprise
fashions,
together with
partnerships
with
local weather
tech
start-ups.
Max
Harris,
ABP’s
group
head
of
technique
and
sustainability,
oversees
its
new
Energy
Ventures
Accelerator
(EVA)
program.
The
initiative
is
poised
to
assist
deepen
the
port
operator’s
relationship
with
its
carbon-intensive
business
clients,
together with
delivery
corporations
and
metal
producers,
by
connecting
them
with
local weather
tech
start-ups
that
can
assist
deal with
large
challenges,
like
decarbonizing
industrial
warmth.
It’s
additionally
a
likelihood
for
ABP
to
make investments
in
potential
clients
of
the
future,
as
these
start-ups
search
to
scale
commercially.
Harris
lately
talked
to
technique+enterprise
about
how
the
evolving
function
of
ports
creates
alternatives
for
ABP
to
check
new
enterprise
fashions,
tackle
its
personal
local weather
challenges,
and
assist
its
clients
advance
hydrogen
energy,
offshore
wind,
carbon
seize
and
storage,
and
different
sustainability-related
targets.
The
following
is
an
edited
model
of
the
dialog.
S+B:
How
have
the
wants
of
your
conventional
ports
clients
modified?
MAX
HARRIS:
Decarbonization
is,
overwhelmingly,
the
major
megatrend
that
clients
need
to
speak
about.
These
clients
embody
delivery
traces
and
logistics
corporations
with
heavy-goods
autos
coming
in
on
ferries.
Aside
from
that,
it’s
about
provide
chain
price
effectivity
and
having
larger
visibility
of
interconnected
operations.
But,
completely,
decarbonization
is
a
key
focus.
Access
to
inexperienced
energy,
greener
fuels,
and
lower-carbon
fuels
is
necessary
for
our
clients,
and
that
entry
is
seen
as
a
key
enabler
of
their
broader
strategic
ambitions.
One
of
the
greatest
challenges
that
we’re
going through
in
the
UK,
in
phrases
of
our
net-zero
trajectory,
is
how
to
decarbonize
industrial
warmth,
which
is
required
for
all
types
of
completely different
manufacturing
processes.
Hydrogen
is
the
main
candidate
to
assist
to
decarbonize
the
creation
of
industrial
warmth.
But
the
problem
is
to
present
that
clear
hydrogen
at
a
aggressive
price,
the place
the
inexperienced
premium
that
producers
and
large
industrial
customers
pay
is
not
so
significant
that
it
turns into
unattractive.
So
ABP
is
working
with
a
quantity
of
revolutionary
hydrogen
producers
that
are
trying
at
completely different
applied sciences
to
cut back
the
price
of
hydrogen
manufacturing,
which
will
then
feed
into
industrial
customers,
so
that
they
can
decarbonize
their
warmth
manufacturing.
It’s
a
actually
thrilling
journey,
the place
we
can
look
to
make
hydrogen
extra
cost-competitive
while
additionally
driving
the
net-zero
agenda.
S+B:
This
appears
like
a
radical
departure
from
the
function
that’s
sometimes
related
with
ports.
Can
you
inform
us
extra
about
ABP’s
evolving
remit
as
a
fashionable
port?
HARRIS:
The
elementary
function
of
ports
has
been
the
identical
all through
historical past:
lifting
cargo
on
and
off
vessels,
and
getting
it
to
end-customers.
That’s
nonetheless,
by
far,
the
majority
of
our
enterprise.
But
we
deploy
a
combination
of
enterprise
fashions.
We
have
land
belongings
and
infrastructure
belongings.
Customers
come
and
use
our
land,
and
then
they’ll
pay
us
to
lease
it,
so
that’s
mainly
a
landowner
mannequin.
But
we’re
additionally
an
infrastructure
enterprise,
as a result of
our
clients
use
our
cranes,
our
quaysides,
our
jetties
and
marine
infrastructure,
and
typically
they
will
function
the
terminals.
To
meet
the
wants
of
our
clients,
we’ve
broadened
our
enterprise
mannequin
from
facilitating
and
enabling
the
import
and
export
of
cargo
to
additionally
embody
enabling
the
vitality
transition.
It
doesn’t
imply
that
we’re
not
centered
on
commerce
anymore:
that
will
at all times
be
the
basis
of
our
enterprise.
And,
actually,
[these
new
business
models]
are
simply
an
enlargement
of
what
we’re
making an attempt
to
do
by
trying
at
the
vitality
transition
and
how
we
help
hydrogen,
carbon
seize
and
storage
[CCS],
and
offshore
wind,
for
instance.
S+B:
How
are
you
leveraging
your
present
belongings
to
develop
your
enterprise
fashions?
HARRIS:
There
has
been
a
enterprise
shift
at
ABP
towards
an
elevated
focus
on
land
belongings.
We
see
this
as
half
of
a
broader
adjustment
in
the
industrial
panorama
of
the
UK,
the place
there’s
a
shift
towards
these
low-carbon
infrastructure
varieties—hydrogen,
offshore
wind,
or
manufacturing
services
for
CCS.
Over
the
final
few
years,
we’ve
seen
an
improve
in
manufacturing
taking
place
at
our
ports.
A
nice
instance
of
that
is
Siemens
Gamesa’s
Green
Port
Hull
[GPH]
offshore
wind
[turbine]
blade-manufacturing
facility,
situated
at
the
Port
of
Hull.
That’s,
by
far,
the
greatest
instance
of
offshore
wind
manufacturing
in
the
UK,
utilizing
state-of-the-art
expertise.
Since
the
mission
grew to become
operational
at
our
port
in
2016,
GPH
has
supported
each
progress
in
the
UK
offshore
wind
sector
and
the
broader
European
deployment
of
offshore
wind.
Likewise,
we’re
seeing
that
producers
need
to
be
situated
at
the
coronary heart
of
massive
industrial
ecosystems,
together with
our
ports
in
the
Humber
area
of
the
UK,
in
South
Wales,
in
Southampton,
and
in
East
Anglia.
We
see
the
use
of
our
land
beside
the
water
as
a
important
driver
for
us
in
phrases
of
attracting
funding
and
manufacturing,
which
brings
with
it
jobs
and
funding
in
coastal
communities.
Ports
are
additionally
good
places
to
check
next-generation
applied sciences.
At
the
Port
of
Southampton,
we
labored
with
Verizon
to
deploy
the
first
non-public
5G
community
on
an
industrial
website
in
the
UK.
[Our
initiatives]
are
actually
centered
on
industrial,
web
of
issues
use
circumstances.
And
one
nice
instance
of
that
is
how
we
work
with
our
automotive
clients
that
are
bringing
autos
into
the
UK
market.
With
higher
5G
connectivity,
we
can
use
our
terminal
working
techniques
to
optimize
the
path
of
the
autos
from
the
ship
or
to
the
storage
location,
based mostly
on
both
time
or
price,
and
now,
carbon.
Having
higher
5G
connectivity
actually
makes
a
distinction
not
solely
to
provide
chain
price
discount
however
additionally
to
CO2
discount.
S+B:
Can
you
inform
us
about
ABP’s
strategy
to
its
personal
local weather
change
challenges?
HARRIS:
We
can’t
credibly
speak
about
enabling
the
vitality
transition
with out
taking
care
of
our
personal
home
when
it
comes
to
sustainability.
There
are,
inevitably,
a
quantity
of
challenges
that
we’ll
face
over
the
subsequent
ten,
20,
30
years.
Rising
sea
ranges
are
actually
excessive
amongst
them,
and
that’s
one
of
our
greatest
long-term
dangers.
So,
we’re
making
positive
that
our
quay
partitions
are
the
proper
top
to
shield
in opposition to
floods
and
storm
surges.
We
additionally
want
to
work
with
public
sector
authorities
round
broader
flood
defenses
and
help
them
in
their
investments.
As
half
of
our
sustainability
technique,
we
have
an
operational
net-zero
goal
of
2040.
One
of
the
methods
we
are
pursuing
this
purpose
is
to
make investments
in
photo voltaic
vitality
era.
ABP’s
ports
have
a
lot
of
warehouses
with
roof-mounted
photo voltaic
panels,
to
optimize
the
use
of
area
for
renewable
vitality
era.
Alongside
onshore
wind
generators,
we
have
32
megawatts
of
put in
capability
for
clear
vitality
era
round
our
ports,
and
that
reduces
our
reliance
on
the
UK’s
nationwide
grid
and
permits
us
to
use
cleaner,
cheaper
energy.
In
addition,
our
clients
can
take
benefit
of
that
cleaner,
cheaper
energy
at
our
ports:
We
personal
the
native
grid
round
our
port
belongings.
Many
of
our
ports
are
large-scale
industrial
websites
reaching
over
1,000
acres
in
dimension.
So,
we
promote
energy
to
our
tenants
and
our
clients
on
these
port
websites.
S+B:
With
sustainability
taking part in
a
larger
half
in
enterprise
technique,
we’re
seeing
C-suite
roles
evolve.
Can
you
inform
us
a
bit
about
your
function,
and
why
ABP
has
determined
to
unite
technique
and
sustainability
in
one
workplace?
HARRIS:
There
are
three
parts
to
my
function.
Firstly,
I
lead
on
company
technique
improvement
and
implementation.
This
goes
hand
in
hand
with
creating
and
delivering
our
sustainability
technique.
And
then
a
new
piece
of
my
function,
one
that
crosses
each
technique
and
sustainability,
is
taking
the
first
steps
into
innovation
and
supporting
start-up
ventures.
This
is
a
new
business
mannequin
we’re
trying
to
discover—to
make
positive
that
we
can
help
the
altering
wants
of
our
clients
as
the
vitality
transition
takes
maintain
and
as
decarbonization
turns into
the
norm
for
the
UK
economic system.
Sustainability
is
inherent
in
our
enterprise
mannequin and
our
business
focus,
as a result of
all
of
our
main
clients
are
both
challenged
by
the
decarbonization
crucial,
searching for
to
cut back
emissions
and
pivot
their
enterprise
to
a
cleaner
future,
or
they’re
trying
to
scale
their
clear
vitality
initiatives,
which
requires
a
lot
of
funding
infrastructure
enablers—which
we
can
assist
present.
Our
protection
throughout
these
completely different
segments
of
the
UK
economic system
means
that
our
function
in
enabling
the
vitality
transition,
and
broader
sustainability
goals,
is
huge.
Sustainability
is
inherent
in
our
enterprise
mannequin,
as a result of
all
of
our
main
clients
are
both
challenged
by
the
decarbonization
crucial
or
they’re
trying
to
scale
their
clear
vitality
initiatives.”
S+B:
Tell
us
about
ABP’s
Energy
Ventures
Accelerator.
How
did
the
concept
for
this
local weather
tech
start-up
platform
first
take
form?
HARRIS:
It’s
gone
from
a
seed
of
an
concept
round
company
venturing
to
a
groupwide
technique
anchored
in
utilizing
our
land
extra
successfully
and
supporting
rising
inexperienced
vitality
markets
such
as
hydrogen
and
offshore
wind.
We
know
who
the
established
gamers
are
in
these
markets,
however
we’d
additionally
like
to
discover
who
the
rising
gamers
are
and
how
we
can
work
with
them.
[Start-ups]
don’t
essentially
have
the
steadiness
sheet
power
to
be
a
conventional
ABP
buyer,
as a result of
we
look
to
signal
ten,
15,
20-plus-year
contracts.
They
can’t
essentially
commit
to
that
size
of
contract.
So,
we
wanted
to
come
up
with
a
completely different
business
mannequin
in
order
to
work
with
these
varieties
of
start-ups—transferring
into
business
scale
operations
and
trying
to
actually
commercialize
the
merchandise
that
they’re
manufacturing.
S+B:
Give
us
an
overview
of
the
accelerator.
What
varieties
of
expertise
options
are
you
zeroing
in
on?
HARRIS:
The
Energy
Ventures
Accelerator
is
a
12-month
program
to
establish
the
highest-potential
vitality
transition
start-ups
in
the
{hardware}
area.
Our
present
clients—steelworks,
oil
refineries,
cement
works—are
trying
to
decarbonize,
and
they
want
expertise
and
these
{hardware}
options
to
get
there.
And
we
need
to
construct
relationships
with
the
large
gamers
of
the
future:
the
start-ups
that
will
turn into
scale-ups
that
will
turn into
totally
established
industrial
gamers.
Our
thesis
is
that
our
present
clients
will
additionally
be
the
start-ups’
clients.
So,
we’re
trying
to
appeal to
the
greatest
and
brightest
worldwide
start-ups
to
come
to
our
ports
to
leverage
our
land
and
infrastructure
belongings,
and
additionally
to
meet
our
buyer
base
and
meet
the
native
stakeholders,
native
authorities,
native
councils,
and
native
enterprise
partnerships.
We’re
working
with
Plug
and
Play,
a
massive
Silicon
Valley–headquartered
innovation
platform
and
VC
investor;
however
they
don’t
simply
do
software program—they’re
additionally
centered
on
onerous
tech
deployment.
The
Energy
Ventures
Accelerator
is
all
about
{hardware}.
It’s
not
SaaS
[software
as
a
service]
options
or
AI.
This
is
about
bodily,
tangible
merchandise
being
manufactured,
like
offshore
wind
parts.
There
are
over
65,000
start-ups
in
Plug
and
Play’s
world
community.
They
have
a
window
into
a
entire
completely different
world
than
we’re
accustomed
to
working
in,
and
so
they
can
assist
us
broaden
our
attain.
S+B:
Give
us
an
instance
of
how
these
types
of
partnerships
may
work.
HARRIS:
One
good
instance
of
ABP
working
with
start-ups
to
help
revolutionary
options
is
when
we
labored
with
Terberg,
which
manufactures
terminal
tractors.
They
needed
to
check
hydrogen
propulsion
models
inside
their
terminal
tractors.
So
we
labored
with
them
and
with
Air
Products,
a
buyer
of
ours,
to
trial
these
terminal
tractors.
It
went
actually
effectively,
and
our
workers
and
staff
examined
the
fuels,
utilizing
hydrogen
versus
diesel.
And
we’re
going
to
do
a
lot
extra
of
that,
the place
we’re
working
with
early-stage
companies.
We’re
trying
at
a
few
completely different
start-up
collaboration
fashions.
On
the
one
hand,
there’s
pilots
and
proof-of-concepts,
by way of
which
start-ups
can
check
their
expertise
at
our
port
websites,
additionally
working
with
our
present
clients
to
trial
real-world
purposes.
On
the
different,
we
may
take
fairness
stakes
in
start-up
companies
in
trade
for
discounted
leases
and
business
help.
But
we
might
additionally
look
at
special-purpose
autos—corporations
set
up
specifically
to
construct
a
product
in
one
of
our
ports,
and
then
we
do
a
revenue-sharing
settlement,
for
instance.
We
additionally
present
go-to-market
help,
connecting
start-ups
with
our
clients
and
with
the
broader
industrial
scene,
particularly
in
locations
like
the
Humber
and
South
Wales.
Part
of
these
investments
might
be
cash-based.
And
then
there
are
different
fashions,
like
a
go-to-market
partnership,
the place
ABP
plus
the
start-up
can
supply
options
to
delivery
traces,
for
instance,
to
assist
decarbonize
their
operations.
S+B:
Fast-forward
ten
years,
when
these
new
tasks
and
pilots
will
have
had
a
likelihood
to
develop.
What
will
ABP’s
port
operations
and
enterprise
look
like?
HARRIS:
There’ll
be
at-scale
deployment
of
carbon
seize
on
massive
industrial
models
round
our
ports.
That
captured
CO2
will
be
used
for
various
fuels—e-fuels,
synthesized
hydrogen,
and
CO2
that
helps
low-carbon
[maritime]
delivery
by way of
e-methanol
and
low-carbon
aviation
by way of
sustainable
aviation
gasoline.
Our
buyer
base
will
be
extra
numerous.
Our
present
clients
will
have
made
big
progress
on
their
decarbonization
journeys
and
will
be
joined
by
new
varieties
of
clients
at
our
ports—large
hydrogen
corporations,
floating
offshore
wind
builders
and
producers.
I
see
our
ports
as
focal
factors
for
a
actually
vibrant,
dynamic
combine
of
medium-sized
corporations
that
are
rising
and
that
are
actually
innovating,
collectively
with
massive
gamers
that
are
additionally
innovating
in
order
to
decarbonize
their
operations.
I
assume
ports
are
going
to
be
a
actual
middle
of
gravity
for
the
industrial
vitality
transition,
and
so
all
the
funding
that
we’re
making
and
all
the
funding
that
our
clients
will
make
on
high
of
that
is
going
to
make
a
actually
large
influence
on
internet
zero
in
the
UK.
Author
profile:
-
Shana
Ting
Lipton
is
a
senior
editor
of
technique+enterprise.
