Efforts made by port operators to reduce their emissions and clean up their operations are not being vocalised enough.
According to Dr Matthew Loxham, BBSRC* Future Leader Fellow in Air Pollution Toxicology, University of Southampton, shipping is holding onto its stigma for being an unclean and polluting method of transport. Its advances in becoming cleaner, particularly in its port operations, are not being seen by those outside the industry because it is not vocalising these efforts.
In fact, many of its achievements are happening silently. Companies and port operators are not telling the world how they are making shipping cleaner and how they are using fuels that are much more environmentally efficient than 10 or 20 years ago.
In Loxham’s experience, not vocalising efforts leads to feelings of victimisation, particularly of port operators, because there is little awareness of what shipping and its ports are actually doing to decarbonise.
While ports are taking steps to change the way they operate, such as by using electric cargo handling equipment, providing facilities for shore power, and incentivising cleaner ships, they are not vocalising these movements.
This is a detrimental to the way shipping is perceived by the outside world, particularly when the automotive and aerospace industries are much more vocal about the way they are changing their operations to enhance efficiency and decarbonise.
By increasing its voice about its clean shipping efforts, the industry will be more transparent. At the moment, this lack of vocalisation is limiting the flow of incentives for cleaner and greener shipping operations into the future.
*Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council
Fathom-News
editor@fathom-mi.com
