Best Sustainable Shipping Practices – Shipping with Care

One of the ways to make the shipping industry more sustainable in terms of the environment is to improve the efficiency with which energy is used and stored at the ships and in the ports, as well as during the on-land transportation of shipping containers between ports.

Other things to take into account to ensure that the shipping industry becomes more sustainable include how the ships are operated. For example, a practice called slow steaming would help the cause considerably by helping to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and fuel consumption. What does slow steaming entail? It's a method of operating the ship at low speeds or rather speeds that are significantly lower than the top speeds that a cargo ship is designed to reach. By doing this, the amount of fuel consumed is less and the carbon footprint of the ship's journey becomes significantly lower.

Another way that the shipping industry can be more sustainable is if it is able to rely on renewable energy sources such as wind power or biofuels, rather than focusing heavily on non-renewable sources such as fossil fuels.

Although more on the corporate side of things, sustainability initiatives out in the ocean or at the ports, for example, are likely to be carried out more smoothly and effectively when there is good corporate governance in place in shipping and port-related organisations. In particular, sustainability reporting needs to be looked at as a key pillar of good corporate governance.

Sustainability also includes social sustainability. In the shipping industry, this means that shipping lines and ports must endeavour to uphold with care responsible, ethical, and fair approaches to things such as employment, labour relations, and appropriate training for the workforces. Furthermore, matters such as diversity, non-discrimination, and equal opportunity rights to employment in occupations related to the shipping industry must be taken seriously. At the same time, unfair compulsory labour practices must be put to an end. From a customer's point of view as well as for the betterment of society as a whole, things such as customer privacy must also be taken very seriously in the industry in addition to ensuring that the actions of shipping lines and ports are guided by socioeconomic compliance as much as they are by other motivations such as the bottom line.

The health, safety, and security of workers on the cargo ships as well as those who work in various occupations at the many shipping ports around the world need to be made a top priority as well in order to achieve sustainability in a holistic sense. To this end, most ports and terminals around the world such as South Asia Gateway Terminals, for example, take care to ensure that they wear the necessary protective gear before stepping out into the working areas of the terminals and are well versed in the safety do's and don'ts while out there.