Meeting global challenges on the way to 2050

As the industry looks to an important milestone there are challenges beyond emissions to deal with, says V Group chief commercial officer Martin Gaard Christiansen

When we talk about 2050, most of the time we talk about decarbonisation. But for me there are three issues that are even more important: the increased regulation we are seeing in the industry; the people challenge, which I believe is the biggest issue; and technology to drive safety performance and make sure we can run vessels efficiently.

When it comes to the regulatory environment, yes we have decarbonisation and the clock is ticking. We also have 2020 just around the corner. We have to make choices; indecision is not an option. For us to make the right choices we need cross-industry collaboration all along the chain to get the best results. It’s good to see initiatives already out there with the first carbon emission-free vessels emerging. Within the next 10 years a lot more will follow.

But there is another point about the regulatory environment which should cause a little concern. Technology is coming in at an exponential, accelerating speed. The regulatory environment is trying to follow behind. This makes the landscape change continuously. Having the right set-up to deal with an ever-more complicated regulatory environment is key, particularly around cyber security and the operational aspects of the business.

The subject I am most passionate about is the people. The industry does not have the image that it deserves. When you see news around shipping you see accidents, piracy and vessels that are going down. We have a massive job to do in improving the image collectively to make sure we get the right people in the industry. Mental health of seafarers is becoming a bigger issue and it is becoming ever more difficult to find the right numbers and the right competencies within our seafaring pools.

Meanwhile the demands on seafarers are going up – technology that we are bringing in to drive down cost and make operations economical needs to be managed. We need to think about bringing in different talent.

A lot of discussions around autonomous vessels are taking place. But ‘autonomous vessels’ does not mean ‘unmanned vessels’. There will still be a key requirement to maintain vessels while at sea. You do not want your US$150M asset to stall 4,000 nm from shore with no-one on board to recover. Autonomous vessels should help to drive better safety performance in the industry, but it will still mean that we need strong, qualified seafarers in 2050 and beyond.

Within technology we see four big areas: one is artificial intelligence; the predictive analysis we can get from that can help us enormously in commercial and safety performance. Blockchain can provide better crew certifications; you can track training from source and you will know that you have qualified people on your vessels. Then there is the fuel quality issue, so you do not get contaminated fuel on board.

Additive manufacturing is already highly developed in the car and airline industries, but it is lagging in shipping. Today, the international space station is printing spare parts, which dramatically reduces costs and improves availability. Big data will mean the combination of vessel health as well as commercial, operational, people and safety records to drive better decisions and, through that, hopefully secure better performance of assets.

The speed of change is exponential, and it is critical that we get on the bus before we are disrupted from outside the industry. 2050 is just around the corner; 2020 is tomorrow. But the biggest challenge in our industry is not decarbonisation, it is people.

These comments are excerpted from Mr Christiansen’s comments at CMA Shipping on 2 April.