About ZEMBA

Early Work
Since 2020, the Aspen Institute Energy & Environment Program has been focused on catalyzing private sector leadership and driving policy change to enable full decarbonization of the maritime sector by 2050 at the latest. Aspen’s work provides space for “impossible” collaborations to be designed, launched, and thrive, encouraging leaders across sectors to recast what they think is achievable. By working at the intersection of market economics, technology, and policy, new relationships can be brought to bear to build a sustainable, zero-emission (ZE) maritime future.

As should be the case when seeking solutions to any multistakeholder challenge, Aspen convened early conversations with stakeholders across the maritime shipping value chain to understand the fundamental barriers to adoption of ZE fuels and technologies. It quickly became clear that there was a need and opportunity to engage the shipping industry’s customers, in particular climate-leading freight buyers, to support a new market and accelerate the pace of the maritime sectors’ decarbonization.

Evolution of coZEV
With this focus, Aspen worked in collaboration with and input from a network of cargo owner companies to develop coZEV, Cargo Owners for Zero Emission Vessels, a platform for climate-leading customers of the shipping industry to come together to undertake high impact initiatives that accelerate the transition to ZE maritime shipping. Our first action in this space was the coZEV 2040 Ambition Statement, which was the first ever collective signal of cargo owner support for transitioning to ZE solutions on a 1.5℃ aligned trajectory, specifically stating that signatory companies intend to only use ZE powered ocean transport services by 2040. The statement also includes the first call for policy action by a group of freight buyers, acknowledging that decarbonization of this sector requires strong public and private sector action at multiple levels.

Launch of ZEMBA
Building on the successful initial engagement with freight buyers via coZEV, and looking to successful efforts in other sectors that have used precompetitive collaboration and demand aggregation to drive sustainability, the Aspen Institute alongside co-founders Amazon, Patagonia, and Tchibo launched ZEMBA in March 2023. Its inaugural tender was launched in September 2023 with over 20 initial members and was successfully completed in April 2024 with the award of multi-year bilateral contracts to the winning shipping line .