Shipping needs to do more to improve its ‘green credentials’

This emerged during presentations during the recent digital on-line Greener Shipping Summit 2020.

With the summit focus on the future of Greek shipping, Intercargo chairman, Dimitris Fafalios said Greek owners over the past six or so years have embraced the EEDI and green technology available in the market place and have embarked on retrofitting their bulk carriers. However, during a Q&A session the president of Fafalios Shipping said “designers and builders of ships have not done enough” to “make shipping greener”.

Vasilis Bacolitsas, chairman of Intertanko’s Hellenic Panel, felt shipping as a whole has done very little to improve its “green credentials” especially pertaining to the “designers of ships, the builders of ships and makers of engine room equipment”.

Talking about tankers Bacolitsas, director Sea Pioneer Shipping Corp, said dual fuel ships are the dominant contributors to greener shipping and “while a step in the right direction will not get us to where we want to go if we are to reach the emission targets”.

Held under the auspices of Greece’s powerful Marine Technical Managers Association, Martecma, its chairman, Stavros Hatzigrigoris, warned Greek shipping will “have to try harder than ever if it is to maintain the top ranking is presently enjoys”. He believes the “core companies of Greek shipping are those with fleets up to 25 ships and that they may find it difficult to survive”.

He said bigger fleets will find it easier but believes “shipping is still a good sector in which to invest”.

Shipowner Ioanna Procopiou, md of Prominence Maritime, said shipping needs “to step outside its bubble” and “educate the people who are making the decisions for the industry” as the IMO “is often blind-sided by regional governments”.

Further, Procopiou, pointed out for a fuel to be ”really green” it has to be produced by a “green method” and not from a fossil fuel which has a “debatable footprint” so it’s important not to just evaluate the fuel once it is onboard the ship but through a total life-cycle analysis. “If we don’t approach it is in this manner, regulators will soon catch-up and owners will be forced to pay a heavy fine or their vessels will become obsolete,” she said.

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