Singapore shipmanager at the forefront of sustainability

“Simultaneously, we are building up a hydrogen consultancy team where we can pass on the knowledge we have gained,” says Mr Schou. Which brings in the other development undertaken by Wilhelmsen. In January 2021, it became a member of the Sustainable Shipping Initiative (SSI), which is an alliance of key organisations that is driven to bring change to a more sustainable maritime industry.

The SSI was one of the pressure groups that in 2016, urged IMO to apply greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction targets to shipping. As a member of SSI, WSM will participate in working groups on issues relevant to the Roadmap’s six vision areas: Oceans, Communities, People, Transparency, Finance and Energy.

At the time Carl Schou said, "We look forward to deepening our sustainability priorities and making a bigger impact through the SSI platform. We hope to work collectively together with other forward-leaning members in SSI to impart values in the shipping industry."

During January 2021, the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) vaccinated 10,000 key workers handling ships and cargo, and this has been extended throughout the industry. “Very early on in the Covid crisis, Singapore identified the maritime industry as essential for the country and the economy. Not only have the port workers been vaccinated, but a large part of the maritime cluster who is in contact with vessels here has also been vaccinated already. The level of infection in Singapore is extremely low compared to many other countries around the world ,” says Mr Schou.

As one of the leading shipmanagement companies, WSM was impacted by the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic, but its own Covid-19 protocols are actually more stringent than that of the local authorities.

Like many companies, WSM has been considering the short and long-term implications of environmental, governance and social (ESG). The social element is the cornerstone of WSM operations. “The Covid-19 crisis is possibility the toughest crisis in our generation. The impact caught everybody by surprise and is unprecedented. I would say the biggest impact of this to ship management is carrying out crew changes,” says Mr Schou.

He adds, “If one can say that something positive has come out of this crisis, it is that crew welfare is now an international concern. However, it’s a shame that we needed a pandemic to get the spotlight on crew welfare. The pandemic has given us the possibility to relook at how we are doing business.”

“In one way this has been a jolt – shaking the very foundation of how and what we are doing. It has made the industry look again at crew welfare and has triggered a number of areas of improvement,” comments Mr Schou.

WSM has been in discussions with ratings companies regarding ESG. “It is something we are considering seriously. There is IMO 2030, the EEDI index and now ESG,” says Mr Schou.

For WSM, emissions-free shipping, decarbonisation, ESG and sustainability are all part of the same theme. WSM is one of the few ship managers to issue a sustainability report and has established a companywide guiding principle that aims to empower all employees towards UN sustainable development goals.

’Performance with Care’ is the guiding WSM principle with the objective of being a responsible ship manager that incorporates three pillars of focus into their operation – People, Environment, and Trade and Customer. A dedicated team has been established to steer the programme within Performance with Care throughout the organisation.

In this respect, one of WSM’s sustainability initiatives was to educate seafarers that safe drinking water is available from the freshwater dispensers located around a ship, and that safe water did not only mean water in a plastic bottle. By giving seafarers their own steel bottle, WSM calculates this saves around 10,000 plastic bottles per ship per year.

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