The Global Centre for Maritime Decarbonisation (GCMD) and the Development Bank of Japan (DBJ) have signed a five-year Impact partnership aimed at accelerating the adoption of maritime decarbonisation solutions through new financing approaches.

The agreement builds on the organisations’ collaboration on the $35 million Fund for Energy Efficiency Technologies (FEET), the firm said in an emailed statement on Tuesday.

DBJ is the fund’s preferred equity provider. FEET uses a pay-as-you-save model that links retrofit payments to verified fuel savings, a structure intended to make it easier for shipowners to invest in energy efficiency technologies.

GCMD said the partnership will combine its experience in running real-world decarbonisation pilots with DBJ’s expertise in transition finance and maritime investment. The organisations said they aim to address financing barriers that continue to slow the adoption of energy efficiency technologies across the shipping industry, where retrofit decisions often depend not only on technical performance but also on how risk and repayment are structured.

FEET has built a pipeline of retrofit opportunities across different vessel owners and technologies, while pilot projects are collecting operational data to better quantify fuel savings. That data is central to the model because it helps link financing terms to measured outcomes rather than projected ones.

“Welcoming DBJ as an Impact partner is a meaningful extension of the work we have already done together through FEET,” Professor Lynn Loo, CEO of GCMD, said.

“Decarbonising shipping is not just a technology challenge; it is also a financing and risk-allocation challenge.”