Fifty-nine percent of Eastern Mediterranean shipping companies now use or plan to use biofuels as their alternative fuel of choice, while LNG has collapsed from 25% to 9% and ammonia from 14% to 7% as near-term options, according to Wave 2 of the METAVASEA survey released today by HELMEPA on World Maritime Day 2026.

The data, collected between December 2024 and November 2025 — the window surrounding the initial adoption of the IMO Net-Zero Framework at MEPC 83 in April 2025 — capture an industry raising its climate ambition faster than it is building the capacity to deliver it. Wave 2 gathered 1,182 responses across five stakeholder groups — seafarers, shipping companies, port administrations, service providers and suppliers, and civil society and port cities — bringing the combined dataset to 2,080 responses.

Implementation barriers are widening even as strategy matures.

Twenty-two percent of shipping company representatives reported a net-zero strategy aligned with the IMO 2050 target, up from 14% in Wave 1, with another 9% reporting a more ambitious strategy. Fifty-nine percent have a dedicated Sustainability Manager or department, up from 49%, and Scope 1 emissions monitoring rose to 78% from 73%.

But three implementation barriers grew in parallel: financial constraints jumped from 46% to 59%, limited implementation capabilities doubled from 29% to 50%, and lack of awareness of available solutions rose from 27% to 50%. For carriers and forwarders in the region, the message is stark: decarbonisation intent is no longer the constraint — money, capability and supplier awareness are.

Crew fatigue unchanged as the top safety concern.

Sixty-nine percent of seafarers named crew fatigue their most important safety concern, essentially flat against Wave 1's 70%, driven by additional responsibilities and workload from new regulations. The next concerns — inadequate training (25%), lack of communication (24%), handling of unfamiliar equipment (24%) and use of new alternative fuels (22%) — all point to the same workforce-readiness squeeze. As EU ETS, FuelEU and IMO compliance tasks cascade onto ships, crews are absorbing the operational load without matching training investment.

Familiarity with the regulatory frameworks is nonetheless improving across every topic measured. EU ETS familiarity climbed from 34% to 47%, FuelEU from 33% to 45%, EU MRV from 30% to 41%, and the IMO GHG Strategy crossed the 50% threshold for the first time, rising from 45% to 56%. ESG indicators rose from 22% to 34% and EU Fit for 55 from 20% to 29%.

Training participation rose too, but the majority still receives none. Forty-five percent of seafarers reported decarbonisation-related training in the past two years, up from 36%; those reporting none declined from 64% to 55%. Among the trained, satisfaction rose from 56% to 65%. Content remains concentrated on alternative fuels (66%), EU ETS (36%), MRV (25%) and FuelEU (24%).

Companies and crews diverge on the skills that matter.

Between waves, shipping companies increased their prioritisation of leadership (40% to 50%), teamwork (36% to 50%), resilience (18% to 30%) and adaptability (27% to 37%) as required seafarer competencies. Seafarers' own priorities moved the other way: resilience declined from 15% to 9%, adaptability held at 12%, leadership held at 44%. The widest Wave 2 gaps between the two groups sit on adaptability and resilience — a misalignment that will matter as fuel transitions and digital systems rewrite onboard routines.

On long-term fuel potential, operators rank biofuels first at 46%, followed by green hydrogen at 20%, green methanol at 17% and green ammonia at 15%.

Digitalisation is operational but not strategic.

Seventy percent of shipping companies use performance monitoring tools, and 79% of seafarers rate digital transition and basic digital awareness as very or extremely necessary training, up from 73%. Yet digital and cybersecurity skills as a core competency were prioritised by only 17% of companies, 16% of seafarers and 11% of service providers. Cybersecurity as a safety concern rose from 8% to 11%.

Ports lag furthest.

Wave 2 drew a single port administration response — the Port of Tripoli, Lebanon — so port findings rest on a combined Wave 1 and Wave 2 sample of 11 ports. Across that sample, 73% of ports report no low-carbon fuel infrastructure, 45% have no ship emissions monitoring capability, and 36% report no planned decarbonisation interventions at all. For carriers planning green-corridor operations in the Eastern Mediterranean, shoreside readiness — not ship technology — remains the binding constraint.

Public perception still outruns the numbers.

Seventy-three percent of civil society respondents rated maritime decarbonisation as highly or very highly important, and 55% rated shipping's contribution to global GHG emissions as very or extremely significant — a perception question, not an estimate of the sector's actual share, which stands at roughly 3% of global CO₂. Forty-one percent reported no awareness of any GHG reduction initiative in maritime transport, and 35% were uncertain which alternative fuel holds the most promise.

Wave 2 has also produced its first youth-led spin-off survey, "Can We Trust the Machine?", on AI and autonomous systems in shipping. Designed and run by 16-year-old HELMEPA Youth Ambassador Leader Sotiris Salamouris under the academic supervision of Professor Dimitris Lyridis of the National Technical University of Athens, it engaged 236 maritime professionals between 28 June and 31 July 2026. Fifty-seven percent want a human supervising every AI decision, with only 9% willing to accept a reduced human role. Support for human oversight rises with experience — from 43% among those with fewer than five years in the industry to 60% among those with more than thirty. A second spin-off, "Is Training an Investment or a Cost", launched by Youth Ambassador Leader Anna Maria Angelopoulou, is under way under the supervision of MIT NAVSEA Professor of the Practice Christopher Wiernicki.

The findings go to expert dialogue at ECONSHIP in Chios on 25 September 2026 and the METAVASEA International Workshop on People-Centred Maritime Decarbonisation at the World Maritime University in Malmö on 2 October 2026.

METAVASEA — Greek for "transition" — is coordinated by HELMEPA with the strategic and financial support of the Lloyd's Register Foundation, running through 2027 with consortium partners including Lloyd's Register, the World Maritime University, the Cyprus Marine and Maritime Institute, Premium Consulting, MIO-ECSDE and CYMEPA, plus 12 associate partners and more than 90 HELMEPA-member companies.

With Wave 3 still to come before the project closes in 2027, the trajectory to watch is whether implementation capability — training, port infrastructure and solution awareness — catches up with a regulatory calendar that tightened at MEPC 83 and shows no sign of slackening.