Regulation Puts Wind in GT Wings’ Sails

As shipping braces for tougher climate rules, GT Wings is betting that compact, high-thrust wind tech can turn compliance into competitive advantage.

The clean shipping boom has long been promised and is slow to arrive. But if you ask GT Wings’ founder and CEO, George Thompson, the inflection point is in sight and regulation is the accelerant.

Listen to George on the Profit Meets Purpose Podcast.

“The market’s really coming in 2027. That’s when the regulation hits hard,” Thompson says. For shipowners and operators, he adds, “the cost of non-compliance is growing”. Those two forces, looming rules and rising penalties, are reshaping buying decisions at sea, creating space for technologies that deliver verifiable fuel and emissions cuts.

The International Maritime Organisation’s (IMO) Net-Zero Framework, due to enter into force in 2027, was approved in April of this year and is a significant piece of legislation encouraging changes to the shipping industry. The framework combines a global fuel standard, requiring ships to steadily reduce the greenhouse gas intensity of their fuels on a full life cycle basis, with a pricing mechanism that penalises excess emissions and rewards early adopters of cleaner technologies. Covering all oceangoing ships over 5,000 gross tonnes, it sets a rising cost of non-compliance while creating a market for surplus emission credits and introducing financial incentives through the IMO Net-Zero Fund. 

Its rollout has not been without controversy, most notably following the United States’ withdrawal from the framework in August 2025. "The Trump Administration unequivocally rejects this proposal before the IMO and will not tolerate any action that increases costs for our citizens, energy providers, shipping companies and their customers, or tourists," the statement said. 

Yet despite political pushback, the framework is already shaping market behaviour. For businesses, this opens space for innovation in areas such as wind propulsion, energy efficiency technologies, and the development and supply of zero and near-zero fuels like hydrogen, ammonia and methanol. It also signals investment opportunities in bunkering infrastructure, fuel certification systems, and digital tools for measuring and optimising emissions.

An experienced engineer, Thompson founded GT Wings four years ago after spotting a gap in the market for wind-assist systems. “The real issue I saw was the size and scale of these technologies and the need to make them small and compact,” he says. 

Borrowing from high-lift aeronautics, GT Wings uses active flow-control fans that “both suck and blow the air at different places”, maintaining attached flow and generating greater thrust from a smaller device. That extra thrust reduces engine load, and therefore fuel use, by “anywhere between five to 35 percent”, depending on route and weather conditions.

That compact design is a crucial selling point on working decks already crowded with cranes, hatches, and cargo. By fitting wind-assist technology into spaces where it typically wouldn’t work, GT Wings could unlock large sections of the fleet without forcing layout compromises.

Regulation as a tailwind

A key driver is the rising demand created by tightening regulations. “It’s getting very expensive to do nothing basically,” Thompson says. It reframes wind-assist from “nice to have” to “risk management”, particularly for owners on longer time-charters where owners and operators can align on sharing costs and savings.

Critically, wind-assist is deployable now, unlike lower-emission fuels. “The reality is that fuel isn’t here yet. The infrastructure isn’t here to service the global shipping market,” Thompson notes. And even when alternative fuels do arrive, the “business case gets even better because those fuels are generally more expensive”.

Regulation is giving innovators something they rarely enjoy - a predictable timetable. Owners know the rules are tightening; charterers know savings are real; investors know demand is increasing. “We want to get hundreds, thousands of these things on ships and manufacture, yeah, 100 to 200 a year,” Thompson says. 

Wind isn’t a silver bullet for the shipping industry, he admits, but it’s one of the rare double-digit levers available today. 

Measuring success

On payback for investment in GT Wings’ solution, Thompson explains that it takes “a four or under four year payback period” on reasonable wind routes today, trending down over time—“maybe in 10 years’ time it will be kind of two years or even less”.

GT Wings’ first installation with Carisbrooke Shipping, a privately owned shipping company based on the Isle of Wight, has already done six trips across the Atlantic and is just about to start its seventh. The team is “getting a huge amount of data back”, and, crucially, “a lot of those test points that we’re running are matching up with our predictions”.

Still, Thompson stresses that measuring savings is complicated. “It sounds simple. You put a wing on a ship and it saves fuel, but actually working out the exact amount… isn’t as easy as it sounds”, given weather, sea state and hull fouling. GT Wings pairs its own models with independent third-party validation so counterparties can agree on a methodology before money changes hands.

Global ambitions 

Hardware is expensive. Thompson is frank about the lifeline that public grants provided. “Innovate UK, (the UK’s innovation agency and part of UK Research and Innovation) has been pivotal… Without that, we probably wouldn’t have been able to do it.” Early support through the Clean Maritime Demonstration Competition (A government funding competitions that allows UK registered organisations to apply for a share of £30 million) unlocked development and prototyping. To date, GT Wings has raised broadly similar amounts via private equity, with a Series A targeted for the back half of next year to meet demand.

GT Wings began manufacturing in the UK to align with grant requirements, and parts for the next two wings are also UK-sourced. But scaling will be regional. Asia looms large — “there’s a huge amount of shipping that is based in Asia” — and logistics matter: “You can’t transport these things halfway around the world. They’re so huge… and also burn a lot of carbon which kind of defeats the point.” Expect parallel fabrication footprints in the UK/Europe and Asia as volumes grow.

Listen to George on the Profit Meets Purpose Podcast.