Rasmus Nielsen takes over as chairman of Sea Cargo Charter

The association of the world’s largest energy, agriculture, mining and commodity trading companies committed to improving emissions reporting was established in 2020. 

Trafigura Maritime Logistics global head, fuel decarbonisation Rasmus Bach Nielsen was elected the new chair of the Association at the 2023 Annual Meeting in Copenhagen. In all, 36 signatories and 12 member companies were elected to the Steering Committee. 

Mr Nielsen is stepping up from his position as vice chair and replaces Cargill president Jan Dieleman. 

He said of his appointment, “I am honoured to be elected as chair of the Steering Committee, and excited to continue all the great work that is already underway. The mindset regarding climate alignment has changed faster than we could have imagined in the past few years, and I look forward to continuing the work on global standardised and transparent emissions reporting which will assist everyone in pushing shipping’s green transition forward.”

Shell’s Claire Wright was re-elected treasurer of the Steering Committee while Cargill global operations director Eman Abdalla was elected as vice chair of the Association. 

Ms Abdalla said she looks forward to expanding the membership, “The Sea Cargo Charter is a critical framework that brings transparency, standardisation and alignment to the shipping industry. I am honoured to be elected vice chair and look forward to working tirelessly to expand our membership base across industries and geographies to achieve our goal of widespread adoption, making zero-carbon shipping a reality.” 

While the association has grown since its establishment in 2020, the ambition is to get more new members from other sectors (such as the mining industry) and across a wider geographical spread.

The Steering Committee counts 14 member companies.

Global Maritime Forum act as the secretariat for the Sea Cargo Charter. Signatories commit to making compliance with the Sea Cargo Charter contractual in their chartering activities and will report on their chartering activities annually using a scoring system. Partners believe transparency and standardisation are important steps to help find a path to drastically reduced emissions in shipping.  

All scores will be published annually by the association’s secretariat. This year’s Annual Disclosure Report detailing the climate impact of the member companies will be published 14 June 2023.