Tag: Global Shippers Forum

The need for shipping alliances to reach out to customers The Global Shippers Forum (GSF) has called for a manageable but rigorous set of monitoring KPIs that can provide the required level of confidence to customers that ocean shipping alliances can deliver tangible benefits in terms of reduced costs, competitive ocean rates and improved services for shippers.Speaking at the Transport Week Conference' in Gdansk, Poland, Chris Welsh - GSF Secretary General - outlined the need for shipping alliances to reach out to customers and start showing demonstrable improvements in service quality and innovative solutions for shippers. A necessary first step is to sort out the current lack of reliability and predictability of their joint operations which is adversely affecting shippers' maritime and logistics supply chains.Chris Welsh said: "Shipping alliances need to take responsibility for monitoring, measuring and benchmarking their performance on key trade routes to demonstrate enhanced alliance performance, and make that information transparent to regulators and their customers as evidence of their commitment to showing the pro-competition benefits of improved alliance services."During his presentation entitled Maritime Alliances - A Customer's Perspective' Welsh stated that the first thing the alliances could do is sort out the reliability and predictability of ...

The recent Containerisation International shipper sentiment survey confirms a number of key policy approaches developed by GSF

Speaking at the 4th Shipping and Offshore Corporate and Social Responsibility Forum, the Secretary General of the Global Shippers' Forum outlined the need for transparency of maritime carbon emissions and interventions, saying it is essential in order that shippers can identify their carbon footprint. After presenting at the CSR event, Chris Welsh, GSF's Secretary General said: "Leading edge shippers, charters and carriers are making substantial progress in establishing common methodologies for measuring, recording and verifying carbon emissions.  The drive is led by customers who are calling for greater transparency in carbon emissions data to benchmark the energy efficiency of carriers so that they cannot only identify their supply chain emissions, but also to take appropriate interventions to reduce supply chain carbon emissions." Entitled 'Driving Transformation through the value chain - the demand for CSR by Shippers' the GSF presentation referred to comments from leading shippers and their motivation of working towards that goal: Reporting carbon emissions within logistics supply chains is essential to demonstrate to customers that businesses are managed in a sustainable way    Being at the forefront of changes in their market sectors Consumers and customers associate brands with doing business in an environmentally ethical way - ie ...

The Global Shippers' Forum (GSF) is calling for more information regarding reduced sulphur surcharges ahead of the implementation of Emission Control Areas from 1 January 2015. From January, new legal requirements will come into force in North Europe (including the Baltic Sea, North Sea and English Channel) and North America (200 nautical miles from American and Canadian shores) which will lower the maximum allowed content of sulphur in fuel burned in the ECA's to 0.1% sulphur from the current 1%. GSF Secretary General, Chris Welsh, said: "With one or two notable exceptions, few shipping lines have yet provided information to their customers on their low sulphur fuel strategies and the extra cost to be passed on to shippers via increased rates or bunker surcharges.  With shippers under pressure to finalise freight budgets for 2015, this information is urgently required by customers." The GSF recognises that implementation of the new low sulphur fuel limits represents a challenge to the shipping industry.  There is a range of options open to carriers: use of marine gas oil which meets the 0.15 sulphur content, use of alternative fuels such as LNG and methanol, and the use of abatement technology such as scrubbers to dilute exhaust ...

The Global Shippers' Forum is calling for shippers' carbon reporting requirements to be fully considered as the maritime sector develops technical and operational measures to reduce emissions. Ahead of the International Maritime Organisation's (IMO) Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC 67) next week, GSF is supporting progress towards establishing a data collection system for ships to measure maritime emissions. Shippers are under increasing pressure to be able to report Scope 3 (indirect carbon emissions) to customers and require this data from ship operators. Chris Welsh, Secretary General of GSF said: "Next week, we hope that the IMO's special correspondence group taking this work forward will make further progress on a data collection system. A pragmatic and practical data collection system, based where possible on actual fuel consumption and distance travelled, will help identify where emissions need to be cut whilst assisting shippers in making carbon efficient supply chain decisions." As the European Commission also works on proposals for a monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) system from 2018 for all large ships that use EU ports, GSF welcomes the IMO's decision to also establish a global system. Ultimately a global reporting system for ships is required as shipping remains a global industry. Mr ...

Shippers support development of data collection system for maritime emissions says GSF

The Global Shippers' Forum (GSF) has said that the proposed P3 Global Alliance plans have been abandoned was the result of legal uncertainties.

The Global Shippers' Forum has welcomed confirmation that the European Competition Commission will closely monitor the P3 for compliance with EU competition rules.

The Global Shippers' Forum is calling for shippers to have a greater voice in global discussions as the debate continues on how to tackle maritime greenhouse gas (ghg) emissions

The Global Shippers' Forum (GSF) has called on international regulators to fully investigate the impact on price and service of the P3, and to make appropriate changes to ease competition concerns