The President of the Marine & Offshore Division of Bureau Veritas (BV) highlighted the importance to move towards pragmatic and ambitious goals to secure the industry’s future.
Specifically, he aims to a future in which shipping meets its decarbonization targets, is more transparent, is better understood outside the sector, and keeps raising standards.
Speaking on World Maritime Day, Matthieu de Tugny, BV’s President Marine & Offshore, has said that the current pandemic situation has left two important lessons.
#1 Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, the maritime industry continued operations as much as possible and the world remained open for trade.
#2 As he quoted, “As an industry, we are vulnerable when it comes to ensuring we can protect the interests of our vital workers – our seafarers.”
Referring to the challenge of decarbonization, , de Tugny said the same lack of influence weakens the industry’s ability to manage its destiny effectively.
He commented that
There are some great initiatives out there now – The Maersk Mc-Kinney Moller Center for Zero Carbon Shipping, the Global Maritime Forum and the Getting to Zero Coalition for example – and we should all be encouraged to work with whoever we can to help get results, but reaching beyond shipping has to be prioritized.
He noted the need for pragmatism, referring to the current division of camps into pro-LNG as fuel and anti-LNG. Zero carbon deep sea shipping needs the development of a renewable energy based hydrogen industry from which suitable fuels like ammonia or methanol can be derived for ship propulsion. “But every revolution starts with pragmatic first steps. We can take these steps now.”
He concluded the mprotance of meeting the real challenge which is the decarbonization of the maritime sector.
