UK Chamber of Shipping: UK remains an attractive and competitive place for shipping

Mrs. Treseder further explains that the Chamber is currently working on a revision of its strategic plan while until today, the Chamber has taken considerable actions to showcase how a career in shipping presents opportunities to young people and to promote diversity and inclusion. In this context, one key highlight, is Chamber’s proposal to make PPE suitable for all, as part of the WESS project.

SAFETY4SEA: What are the top priorities in your agenda for the next 5 years?

Sarah Treseder: We want to ensure the UK remains an attractive and competitive place for shipping. That means three things. While we need to ensure that we have clear pathways to decarbonisation for the sector, including robust targets and strategies at the International Maritime Organization this must be alongside investment at the UK level.  Specifically, we need to see investment in research and development for new fuels and technologies and the rollout of shore power, where we are twenty years behind other nations, alongside other infrastructure for key issues such as fuel storage.  Having a workforce with the skills we need to make this green transition will also be important. This starts by giving current seafarers the opportunity to develop new skills so they not lost to the industry. We also need to be attracting new entrants to shipping. Engagement with schools and colleges via the Merchant Navy Training Board will be one element but as an industry need to showcase how a career in shipping presents so many opportunities to those making the first steps in their career.

S4S: They say that there is a gift/ opportunity in every challenge. Given the challenges that shipping is facing in way of decarbonization, what sort of opportunities do you identify?

S.Tr.: As public awareness continues to grow on climate change the opportunity to promote shipping as a green form of travel increases. This will be especially true for sectors such as ferries where the opportunity to replace short haul flights is significant.  While we must do everything we can to reduce the impacts of climate change and minimise emissions, inevitably there will be changes to economic activity across the world as our climate changes. Shipping will be central to ensuring that as we all adapt to these patterns, we continue to maintain robust and reliable supply chains.

S4S: In your view, has the industry been successful in implementing safety culture? What should be our key priorities for strengthening safety culture onboard and ashore?

S.Tr.: Improving safety culture is something the Chamber takes extremely seriously with initiatives such as our annual safety culture conference. It’s vital that safety culture is embedded at all levels of an organisation but especially important is the example set by senior management. We need to remember that the main element to a robust safety culture is not technology but those who work in our industry. This means we need to ensure that trust runs throughout an organisation but especially that those on ships have confidence that senior management live the safety culture that they champion.  We also need to be prepared to be open and honest when things go wrong and learn from each other.

S4S: Are you satisfied with industry stakeholders’ response on the issue of crew welfare until today? How should industry stakeholders work to improve life onboard and foster seafarers’ resilience?

S.Tr.: Without seafarers, ships do not sail and we should all be incredibly grateful for the work seafarers do to help keep global supply chains moving. Working in collaboration on seafarer welfare is essential. The Chamber has strong working relationships with unions and international organisations where we seek to reach agreement jointly on how best to advance seafarer wellbeing. This collaborative approach has delivered real results, including at the International Labour Organization earlier this year with a three-year agreement on seafarers pay alongside eight enhancements to the Maritime Labour Convention, 2006 to improve life onboard for seafarers. These included greater connectivity to help seafarers keep in touch with family and friends.

S4S: What needs to change to raise industry’s profile and attract the future talents?

S.Tr.: It is a range of things. We need to keep those already working in the industry by ensuring that they have the opportunities to learn new skills but we also need to be engaging with young people at schools and colleges across the country. All too often young people are not aware of the opportunities available in shipping with a range of careers beyond working on board a vessel. One way to overcome this barrier is for maritime to feature in the current curriculum more than it does at the moment. Maritime can feature in a range of subjects and this small step has the potential to show young people across the country how they can be involved in maritime. We should also avoid just focusing our efforts on coastal areas where young people can ‘see the sea’. Our inland areas have a range of talent that we should be seeking to attract into our industry. To encourage more engagement and spark the interest in young people, we need as many individuals employed in the maritime industry as possible to sign up to be a maritime ambassador and actively partake in raising awareness.

S4S: What actions should we take to collectively create a diverse and inclusive industry?

S.Tr.: We are fully aware not only of the need for the industry to offer an attractive proposition to as many potential applicants as possible, but also the value of a diverse workforce. The Chamber has been promoting diversity and inclusion for many years. This has historically included providing guidance on how recruitment programmes could be adapted to reach under-represented groups.  One of our recent initiatives was as part of a European social partners’ project, WESS, which made further proposals to aimed at increasing women’s participation in the maritime industry.  These recommendations included important items such as PPE are suitable for all and the setting of clear targets for the minimum percentage of women in maritime management. More generally the industry needs to ensure it is providing pathways up the career ladder for everyone and ensuring that feedback from underrepresented groups is heard just as loudly as those in the majority.

S4S: Do you have any new projects/ plans that you would like to share with industry stakeholders?

S.Tr.: The Chamber is currently working on a revision of its strategic plan, which will set the direction and the priorities of the Chamber for the years ahead. We are aiming to publish it in March 2023.  One thing that has come through loud and clear through the process is the unique role the Chamber has in unifying shipping across the UK and being its voice to government. I am looking forward to sharing more details on our plans in the months’ ahead.

The views presented hereabove are only those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of  SAFETY4SEA and are for information sharing and discussion  purposes only.