Shipping needs to be greener to address financial "gaping hole” in shipping industry

Maersk Triple E class Super Container ship

The financial crisis and the retreat of the banks means the shipping industry must look to a new set of investors that are demanding greater transparency and environmental performance before they will invest, according to the global head of transport at Dutch bank ABN-Amro.

"Banks are retreating from the business so that leaves a very big gaping hole in the financial structure," ABN-Amro’s Gust Biesbroek said "The way ships are being financed today: that hole is being filled rapidly by capital markets, private equity and other private investors and the demands that this new money puts on all the shipping companies in which they invest are very different from the old fashioned bank; there is a lot more emphasis on transparency, longer term transparency as well and of course environmental performance."

Biesbroek made his remarks yesterday at an event hosted by the Sustainable Shipping Initiative, a cross-industry coalition of businesses working to achieve a sustainable future for the shipping industry. He was joined by representatives from global marine equipment manufacturer, Wartsila Corporation, and shipping giant Maersk Line, which today launches the first of its Triple E ships, its most environment-friendly family of ships to date.

Over 80 per cent of world trade is carried by the global shipping industry and that means emissions from shipping now total over a billion tonnes a year.

Biesbroek suggested it was time the shipping industry dragged itself into the 21st century and start thinking long-term. 

The Maersk Triple E class will be a family of 20 large, fuel-efficient container ships, designed as a successor to the Maersk E-class and costing US$1.9 billion to build. The name 'Triple E; is derived from the class’s three design principles: 'Economy of scale, Energy efficient and Environmentally improved’. The vessels are 400 metres long, 59 metres wide and 73 metres high and will travel the Asia-Europe trade route. They cover 184 kilometres using just one kilowatt hour of energy per ton of cargo – the same amount of energy per ton of cargo it would take a jumbo jet to travel half a kilometre. They will cut carbon dioxide emissions by more than 50 per cent for every container they move, compared to the industry average the same trade route.

Read more: green shipping news | Shipping needs to be greener to address financial "gaping hole”