The President of Gliese Foundation, Pablo Rodas-Martini, has highlighted that the majority of the container shipping companies are not taking the environmental topic seriously, excepted the Danish container carrier, Maersk.
Even if “most of them join initiatives, write something nice on their websites, highlight the environmental benefits of their newest vessels, their CEOs participate in conferences and webinars, and maybe sponsor some minor environmental initiatives,” Maersk is the only container line taking essential eco-friendly actions, according to Rodas.
“The rest of the carriers are pretty behind, even some with good sustainability reports (SRs),” he told Container News.
Meanwhile, seven out of the twelve largest container shipping companies in the world had not released their SRs for the year 2020 until the end of the first half of the current year, according to maritime and climate change foundation, Gliese Foundation, which pointed out, “that is not acceptable.”
“If companies release their annual reports and financial statements one or two months after the end of the year, why can’t they do the same with their Sustainability Reports?” wonders Gliese Foundation in its announcement.
Last year only four companies released their reports during the first half of the year, seven did in the second half (five as late as September), while Pacific International Lines (PIL) has never released a report. This year, the situation has not changed as only five shipping carriers have released their reports during the first half of the year.
The reason is clear for the President of Gliese Foundation, Pablo Rodas-Martini, who argues that since SRs are not mandatory, the shipping companies do not consider these reports as a priority.
“That is a pity because it only shows that companies must have the pressure of regulations to comply with obligations,” Rodas told Container News.
Gliese Foundation, which ranks the shipping companies for their environmental reporting, said last year that they would be stricter while reviewing each report and they would penalise those companies that release their reports too late.
The President of Gliese Foundation stated that no organization truly reviews and evaluates the carrier’s environmental performance.
No institution, not even classification societies, evaluates the carriers’ environmental performance, according to Rodas, who said, “For that, one would have to have a team of evaluators for each of the major carriers. Not even the information of Porst State Controls can say that they are doing an environmental evaluation.”
Additionally, most carriers include in the SRs only the ships they owned, not the ones they charter, according to Rodas, who noted that it is “absurd from an environmental point of view,” as the ships that a company charters would have to be taken into account into an accurate evaluation of the environmental performance of a carrier’s fleet.
“That is why we [Gliese Foundation] make clear in our methodological approach that we are evaluating the environmental reporting of the carriers, not the actual environmental performance,” explains Pablo Rodas-Martini.
