‘Eat your heart out’ Wopke Hoekstra: The Dutch maritime manufacturing industry is well on its way to becoming a Circular Champion! Looking back on the world’s first Circular Route, which we organised during Europort 2025: an innovative tour of frontrunners who demonstrated that smarter use of raw materials is not only good for the planet, but also economically and strategically smart.
Circular Route
Four exhibition days. Four guided tours. Four Green Stage sessions. An international delegation, political representatives, captains of industry, and a group of up-and-coming maritime talent. From November 4 to 7, fifteen frontrunners demonstrated what is already possible today and how smarter use of materials leads to tangible results. The Circular Route at Europort 2025 brought the entire value chain together—from design to smart maintenance, from construction to high-quality reuse—and proved that circularity in the maritime manufacturing industry is not a dream for the future, but a reality.
Results speak for themselves!
So many enthusiastic people, companies, and partners demonstrating what is possible when we combine knowledge, entrepreneurship, and decisiveness:
Damen, Alewijnse, and TKF are making immediate savings on critical materials such as copper thanks to smart cable engineering. A win-win-win situation: less material, lower costs, and reduced weight.
CEAD is transforming the production process for small (work) boats with large-scale 3D printing: 10–40% material savings, 70% faster production, maximum design freedom, and reuse potential.
Holland Shipyards Group, Conoship International, and eConowind demonstrate how innovative design, daring to build differently, and technology such as wind-assisted propulsion result in more fuel-efficient and longer sailing.
With its breakthrough in diesel-to-methanol retrofit kits, the Nederlandse Innovatie Maatschappij (Dutch Innovation Society) is extending the service life of thousands of ships, while Shipsonic ensures more efficient sailing without fouling—and without copper.
THB Verhoef, AEGIR-Marine, and Wärtsilä give components a second, third, or even fourth life through remanufacturing and reconditioning, thereby saving impressive amounts of material, CO2, and 40-60% in costs. Classification societies such as Bureau Veritas play a crucial role in this.
Allard Europe recovers and reuses steel dredging components to create new high-quality castings, while Royal IHC is investigating how circular design, reverse logistics, and shipyard organisation can be combined in this process. In this way, they are strengthening a chain in which raw materials, knowledge, and innovation continue to circulate.
Rotterdam Ship Repair even built a circular dock from reused pontoons and hatches. Innovation with common sense and without waste!
Smarter use of materials for competitive advantage
These companies demonstrate that circularity has economic and strategic value and has a direct impact on the Werf van de Toekomst project (frontrunners project Shipyard of the Future). Through smarter use of materials, adaptive design, and remanufacturing, we are strengthening European strategic autonomy and our international competitive position. One thing became clear above all else, as Marja van Bijsterveldt, Special Envoy for the Maritime Manufacturing Industry, said: “Circularity is not a solo effort.” It requires cooperation throughout the value chain, courage, and a proactive role from the government and classification societies to enable upscaling.
In knowledge sessions—with KVNR, Neptune Marine, Holland Shipyards, Van Oord, CEAD, and others—we dove deeper into circular construction, maintenance, and preservation of ships, the enormous (reuse) potential of 3D printing, and financing the circular maritime future. With ISRA, Sea2Cradle, and Marine Metals, it became clear that end-of-life is actually a new beginning!
With a special envoy, a minister, a deputy, several aldermen, directors, and many sisters on our midst, we can say with certainty: circular and maritime is a no-brainer. It strengthens our strategic autonomy, increases commercial opportunities, and makes the sector more sustainable. That is why we must take action now to convert opportunities surrounding smarter use of materials into our competitive strength for the future!
Thank you, team and partners!
Special thanks to everyone who contributed ideas, worked hard, promoted the project, and is working so passionately toward a sustainable maritime future. A huge shout-out to the dream team of Brigitte Warnaar, Rosanne van Houwelingen, Veerle Voesten, Sebastiaan Schellekens, and supporters Danielle Veldman, Esther Roth, Anouk van Helvert, Kitty Tang, Reinier van Winden, Dimitri van Rijn, Raymond Siliakis, Samantha Sneepels, and Akash Raktoe.
About the Circular Route & Maritime Circular
The Circular Route is an initiative of Maritime Sisters and BlueCity, in collaboration with Europort and a broad coalition of market players and knowledge partners. It was made possible by the Municipality of Rotterdam (Rotterdam Maritime Capital of Europe), the province of South Holland, and the National Shipbuilding Office NL, and supported by Maritime by Dutch Maritime Network (NML) and Maritime & Offshore NL. Together, we are putting circularity firmly on the maritime agenda.
The route is part of a multi-year program by Maritime Sisters and BlueCity, which puts circularity on the maritime agenda in a structural way. The program builds on a exploration of 30 market players, which showed that the sector is already in full swing and offers great opportunities for further upscaling.
For more information about the Circular Route, visit the official Europort website.