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Environmental Business Review | Wednesday, May 11, 2022
Due to advancements in surveillance technology, Ocean industry practices are under examination, and the industry has accountability for how their activities impact the ocean's health.
FREMONT, CA: Many ocean industries have existed for centuries, far from land, out of sight, and usually out of mind. However, high-resolution satellite imagery, drones, tracking systems, and a global call for accountability are starting to lift the veil on industrial ocean practices. While the ocean industries have little control over surveillance technologies, they can directly contribute to the movement toward greater transparency by taking an active role in data sharing. This increases operational accountability, public trust, profitability, and even operational efficiency and sustainability. Human well-being and the global economy depend on the ocean's sustainable utilization. To guarantee such utilization, companies engaged in ocean-based economic activities must be transparent in their operations to owners, customers, and society.
This transparency is requested mainly from owners and finance as they require direct insight into long-term ocean operations to reduce financial risk and comply with investment policy and environmental profiles. In addition, owners can exercise responsible ownership more easily if they constantly access information. Examples of owners and financial institutions requesting this can be witnessed as Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM) has stated unequivocally that it expects the companies it has invested in to share both sustainability strategies and the impact of their operations on the oceans. Another example is the Poseidon Principles, which several ship financing banks have agreed to follow to promote international shipping's decarbonization by creating a framework for incorporating climate considerations into lending decisions.
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Furthermore, Customers are pushing from the bottom up for transparency. Customers' operational and market risks are inseparably linked to how they source their goods and services and, thus, to their environmental profile and future earnings. The Vanora – C4IR Ocean cargo chartering solution will demonstrate this as a charterer will be able to compare vessel efficiency and CO2 emission estimates from the various vessel and route options, thus directly addressing the environmental impact of the operations. Therefore, data sharing directly allows market forces to intervene and drive change. Parallels with John Maynard Keynes' concept of user cost can be drawn in this light. Initially, Keynes saw this as a situation in which entrepreneurs sacrifice future profits by investing in capital equipment today.
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