2023 SAFETY4SEA Limassol Forum: Key trends towards a sustainable shipping future

The event was organized by SAFETY4SEA, having MacGregor and SQE Marine as lead sponsors. More sponsors of the event included the following organizations: The American P&I Club, Arcadia Shipmanagement Co. LTD, Blue Planet Shipping Ltd (BPS), Capital-Executive Ship Management Corp. , Capital Gas Ship Management Corp., Capital Shipmanagement, ClassNK, Columbia Shipmanagment, Diaplous Group, DNV, Dorian LPG, Dromon Bureau of Shipping,  Eastern Mediterranean Maritime Limited (EASTMED), EURONAV, Green-Jakobsen A/S, KeelX, Latsco Marine Management Inc., MINTRA, OSM Maritime Group, RISK4SEA, SEAFiT, Steamship Mutual, Tototheo Maritime, Tritan Software Corporation, The UK P&I Club.

Supporters of the event included: Clean Shipping Alliance 2020, CYMEPA, Cyprus Marine Club, Cyprus Marine and Maritime Institute, Cyprus Shipping Chamber (CSC), Cyprus Union of Shipworkers (CUS), Institute of Chartered Shipbrokers Cyprus Branch, The Nautical Institute, Cyprus Branch, WISTA Cyprus, YoungShip Cyprus.

Opening the event, Mr. Apostolos Belokas, Managing Editor, SAFETY4SEA, welcomed the delegates and speakers, thanked sponsors, and gave the word to shipping experts.

In a keynote address to delegates, Ioannis Efstratiou, Director, Safety and Environmental Protection Directorate, Shipping Deputy Ministry, Republic of Cyprus, addressed key priorities of Cyprus towards a more sustainable future for the shipping industry, mentioning their long-term strategy to meet decarbonization goals and ensure that EU Shipping will remain strong and competitive as well as key actions in order Cyprus to maintain momentum with seafarer welfare.

Presentations formed in four different panels as follows:

Panel #1 Human Factors

Humans is the driving force of shipping; by understanding human nature to identifying seafarers’ training needs and skills and finding ways to mitigate risks onboard, we can ensure sustainable performance for the industry.

Evros Damianou, Education Program Lead, KeelX Education, referred to the major challenges of e-learning and the new technologies which will framework the future of the eLearning market. He highlighted that ‘eLearning is not a firework’ as statistics, and relevant research shows that eLearning provides 60% faster learning and observation than physical classes, while 93% of global firms are switching to online learning, completely or at least as an alternative.

Capt. Faouzi Fradi, Group Director of Crewing and Training, Columbia Shipmanagement, highlighted the importance of training for the human factors and the different types. For example, gamification can be used for effective COLREG training as it can attract young seafarers, is entertaining, and can help increase their memory and focus.

Elena Maniatopoulou, WISTA Member, WISTA Cyprus & Partner and Head of HR Advisory Services, RSM Cyprus, noticed that there are many ways to keep remote employees productive and engaged. Some of these ways include review and maintenance of realistic job descriptions, intentional utilization of regular virtual meetings, visibility of management team (even virtually), and regular progress updates and organizational goal sharing to keep the team connected.

Dr. Maria Progoulaki, Senior Consultant, Green-Jakobsen A/S, focused on the link between human factors and human performance, highlighting that we must manage people-related situations and promote a culture where we act before anything goes wrong. In that regard, it is crucial to understand: How context drives safety performance; The factors that influence safety performance, and why directing people’s attention to what matters is crucial.

Ioanna Skondra, Marketing Manager & ESG Ambassador, American Hellenic Hull, gave a presentation on human sustainability in the shipping and marine insurance industry, highlighting there is need for policies & procedures to protect Human Rights, enhance sustainability & Diversity/Equity/Inclusion; Education & training within organization to establish this culture from Junior to C-level executives.; as well as co-operations & accolades​.

 

Panel #2 Loss Prevention & Best Practices

Industry is facing several and diverse challenges and needs to be proactive to balance associated risks. Therefore, implementing loss prevention measures and best practices can help industry stakeholders prepare for the disruptive changes that will eventually take place.

Capt. Daniele Badalucco, Head of HSEQ – CSO at Interorient Shipmanagement, focused on the importance of experience transfer and sharing best practices, highlighting that whether to exceed compliance and how to exceed is a choice of every organization. However, he noted that it is everyone’s responsibility, as well as every company’s, to share lessons learned and implement best practices for enhanced safety.

Taslim Imad, Manager Loss Prevention Department at Steamship Mutual, pointed out, from the P&I perspective, electric cars pose significant risks to the ships and crew where there is an incident on board which is not dealt with immediately, the risks and mitigating measures of which need to be understood and discussed with all concern stakeholders in order to make shipping industry safer.

Yiannis Manolis, Director at Tritan Software Corporation, presented an interesting insight on maritime medical solutions. Tritan & Allianz have partnered up to provide A-Z premium bespoke maritime medical solutions to all industry segments, ranging from telemedicine and PEME management to mental health and medical chest management, leading to significant cost and workload reduction.

A strong supporter of culture over any system, Capt. VS Parani, Vice President- Marine at Tufton Asset Management Ltd., he believes that a robust culture is required even when we have the best equipment or people on board. In order to ensure the effective implementation of the safety management system, safety culture must be nurtured by safety leadership on an ongoing basis.

Dimitris Psarros, Business Development Manager at RISK4SEA, presented the audience with some interesting insights from a PSC Automation case study, highlighting that the use of automation can improve PSC Performance KPIs, streamline operations and minimize OPEX. As he explained, behind any detention, there are three key reasons: Lack of awareness of a PSC Inspection Probability; Lack of awareness of the local PSC Focus items; Inadequate communication of priorities to the ship

Concluding the second panel, Nicholas Rich, Group Technical Manager – Systems at Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement Ltd, pointed out complexity increases the need for training. Experience loss due to crew shortages increases the need for procedures and training, leading shipping into an unsustainable spiral of constantly increasing training needs driven by new procedures. He warned that until this problem is recognized, nothing effective can be done to address it.

 

Panel #3 Maritime Decarbonization

General public and industry stakeholders are calling for total zero emissions by 2050 with strengthened 2030 and 2040 targets to align to the 1.5ºC of the Paris Agreement, which was reinforced at COP27. The Maritime industry needs to reply to this call, enhance targets and exploit sustainable ways to decarbonize.

Panagiotis Bousounis , Cyprus Operations Manager, DNV Maritime, explained that as we are heading towards decarbonization, regional regulators, financiers and charterers push for faster progress. There are plenty of energy efficiency measures that can and shall be taken either on logistics (planning, routing etc), ship design or machinery. However, on the long run there will be no other alternative than the use of Alternative fuels, he said.

Georgia Ioannou, Environmental Manager, Dromon Bureau of Shipping, argued that it is essential that all vessels operating in European/International waters adhere to the environmental regulations. These regulations are designed to minimize the environmental impact of maritime transport. They must also take steps to reduce their fuel consumption and increase their efficiency, she concluded.

Capt. Konstantinos G. Karavasilis, Regional Director, Loss Prevention, UK P&I Club, mentioned what impact regulations have on industry’s journey towards decarbonization and discussed about the loss prevention challenges, considerations for risk & security management, the available fuel options and ways to tackle with air emissions.

Bill Stamatopoulos, Global Business Development Director, VeriFuel, noticed that biofuels are compatible with modern marine engines and can be used safely onboard ships. Yet questions remain about the full supply chain sustainability and the wide-scale availability of advanced biofuels. Biofuels would require minimal investment to keep in line with evolving regulations and ensure crew safety and are therefore one of the best steppingstones to decarbonization, he highlighted.

Prof. Dr. Elias Yfantis, Senior Scientist, Cyprus Marine and Maritime Institute (CMMI), said that decarbonization of shipping needs synergies of expertise originating from many fields, explaining that CMMI is leading Green Marine, a Horizon Europe funded project which will demonstrate tools and implementation of innovative solutions aimed at carbon capture and mineralization. The project is also targeting deacidification of oceans and seas and the use of engine waste heat to produce syngas and reduce fuel consumption.

 

Panel #4 Shipping 4.0 and smart technologies

The fourth industrial revolution is expected to immensely affect maritime transport, where smart autonomous ships will shape a new and fully interconnected maritime ecosystem.

Marvin Bielek, Project Manager and Instructional Designer, MINTRA, noticed that modern technologies develop at a lightning speed and are adopted by our industry quicker than ever. Seafarers do not have any other choice than to keep up with the technological evolution. We can only achieve this by ensuring training delivers to the point. As such, he explained we need to utilize the most effective learning methodologies and technologies to ensure the largest impact on the development of the current, as well as the next generation of seafarers.

Andreas Chrysostomou, Chief Strategy Officer, Tototheo Maritime, referred to industry’s challenges in the sustainability era, highlighting that the value of sustainability must not be seen as how green the industry currently is. Instead, it encompasses both the immediate and future costs and benefits of sustainable practices. ​As such, striving for sustainability should be viewed as a separate, ongoing objective for every organization, with a focus on long-term success.

Pankaj Sharma, Group Director Digital Performance Optimization, Columbia Shipmanagement, discussed how digitalization impacts fleet operations and explained that they have produced an innovative, gamified, virtual reality application for their clients, by helping them explore the various decks and components that are tagged in different scenes onboard the vessel. The officers can take advantage of the AR-VR application to familiarize themselves with specific features found on the vessel.

Giampiero Soncini, Managing Director, Oceanly Srl, questioned whether the new breed of maritime software that is coming, is it good for the industry and why is this software so special. IT companies offering Performance / decarbonization / fuel monitoring solutions are coming out at a speed not seen in the maritime industry since the era of e-business, in the years 1998-2000. At that time, of the 143 start-ups offering an e-commerce solution, by mid-2000, only a couple survived, he stated.

Evangelos Tzitzis, Unmanned Systems Manager, Diaplous Group, explained how drone technology is improving safety in the maritime industry and lays the groundwork for the digitalization of ships’ inspection. He referred to the dangers that traditional methods entail for maritime workers to highlight that remote inspections with the use of robotic systems offer many benefits and enhanced safety and efficiency

 

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