Shipping companies should implement a programme of "12 steps to heaven" to improve their environmental per-formance. They should also fully support moves by bodies such as the IMO (International Maritime Organisation) to establish worldwide environmental standards in that sector. Those were two of the main arguments put forward by an environmentalist and a logistician during discussions at a recent maritime logistics forum about the need for the global shipping industry to step up its efforts to reduce pollution at sea, on land and in the air. The event was at The Environment Club (formerly the Marine Environment Club), a forum established by Scandinavian global outbound vehicle logistics service provider Wallenius Wilhelmsen Logistics (WWL) to promote public discussion about environmental issues in maritime and other logistics sectors, held in London, England. The global marine programme director for environmental group WWF International, Simon Cripps, outline a series of "12 steps to heaven" drawn up by that organisation which, he argued, the global shipping industry should take to improve its environmental performance. Those steps, he said, involved: * Ship design - Features should include double hull constructions with in-board located fuel tanks, enhanced propulsion systems with proven fuel consumption benefits, more large vessels capable of carrying greater loads and thus providing more efficient per-unit transport, and investment in 'next generation' concept ships. * Fuel and oil usage - Wider use of low sulphur fuel. WWL vessels, for example, had since 2004 only used fuel with a maximum sulphur content of 1.5 percent, whereas the global average is still 2.7 percent. "WWL are so far ahead of the game on this - we can take that to the IMO and show it can be done," said Cripps. * Shipping routes - All shipping companies should use routes which respected environmentally-sensitive high sea areas. * Transport efficiency - Shipping companies should have a policy and plan to maximise load efficiencies, with evide
nce to support it. "There are a wide range of measures possible to increase the loading efficiencies on ships, allowing more to be transported at a time," suggested Cripps. * Emissions to air - All companies should demonstrate a policy and action plan to reduce/eliminate emissions to air and their compliance with international standards. * Emissions to sea water - All companies needed to state full commitment to the IMO ballast water management convention and bilge water management regulations and show how the requirements were implemented. * Oil spills, both accidental and incidental - Shipping companies needed to have a zero oil spill policy and should target both major and incidental oil spills. Companies should demonstrate actions which fulfilled that requirement. * Waste treatment - Ships should have a "no over-board'' waste policy and commit to IMO/Marpol and local port regulations. All recyclable materials should be recycled on shore. * Noise - "Current shipping noise frequencies are also used by many
species of whale but there are currently no regulations relating to underwater noise," said Cripps. Shipping companies should therefore have a policy to take noise into consideration with ship design, he argued, and should work with the IMO and other operators to address the problems of non-regulation in that area. * Use of chemicals and other raw materials - Shipping companies should state compliance with the international convention on the control of harmful anti-fouling systems on all ships and specifically ban TBT (Tributyltin). * Ship recycling - Shipping companies should have "green passports'' or documents which ensured ships met IMO guidelines on recycling for all their vessels. * Reporting on transparency and improvement - Shipping companies should comply with a series of fundamental reporting principals relating to issues such as compliance with international laws/conventions and commitment to sustainability. Earlier in the debate, WWL president and chief executive officer Arild Iversen called for more concerted worldwide efforts to establish consistent standards for the environmental performance of commercial ships. Specifically, he urged governments to ratify international agreements relating to vessel emission and other shipping industry environmental issues. "Society will increasingly expect us to take responsibility for the impact of shipping on the climate and we need to do that as an industry," he argued. "Requirements should be set at a high level and we all need to back the work of the IMO to ensure we have global standards in place." Iversen also suggested that the shipping industry should establish some form of community system for environment certificate trading.
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