  Ecosystems are ubiquitous but trust within them is not guaranteed. Trust is
paramount because stakeholders within an ecosystem must collaborate to achieve
their objectives. With the twin transitions, digital transformation to go in
parallel with green transition, accelerating the deployment of autonomous
systems, trust has become even more critical to ensure that the deployed
technology creates value. To address this need, we propose an ecosystem of
trust approach to support deployment of technology by enabling trust among and
between stakeholders, technologies and infrastructures, institutions and
governance, and the artificial and natural environments in an ecosystem. The
approach can help the stakeholders in the ecosystem to create, deliver, and
receive value by addressing their concerns and aligning their objectives. We
present an autonomous, zero emission ferry as a real world use case to
demonstrate the approach from a stakeholder perspective. We argue that
assurance, defined as grounds for justified confidence originated from evidence
and knowledge, is a prerequisite to enable the approach. Assurance provides
evidence and knowledge that are collected, analysed, and communicated in a
systematic, targeted, and meaningful way. Assurance can enable the approach to
help successfully deploy technology by ensuring that risk is managed, trust is
shared, and value is created.
