Maritime governance and shipping

Sari Repka,
Project Manager,
University of Turku,
Finland

Leading several projects on maritime governance and clean shipping for more than ten years has given me a wide peek on how tightening environmental regulation shapes the future of the maritime sector as an integral part of the maritime governance. Much has happened during that time in the attitudes of shipping sector towards environmental regulation. It is an excellent example of a case showing that when there is a will there is a way. Sometimes the will has to come from above in the form of a regulation, however. In early days, attitudes in the shipping sector towards environmental protection was that it was something extra, not our business and something that simply can never be afforded as it does not directly pay off. Now many have realized that environmental investments indeed are in the core of the business. How the turntables, currently we are in the situation that most of the forthcoming regulation on shipping is coming from environmental side.

Recently maritime governance has been gaining more weight and visibility in the public eye. Both maritime spatial planning process and launching the term blue growth for maritime businesses have contributed to this. The future of us all depends on successful maritime governance because seas and oceans provide so much for the humankind. We cannot lose their ecosystem services without endangering our own survival. One definition for the maritime governance is that it is a dynamic process consisting of interdependent areas of legal regulations, blue economy, security and environmental elements. From this definition, I would raise the word dynamic as being of key importance. For decisions to be knowledge-based, we need to be able to act and adapt the regulations in accordance with new knowledge on their effects.

Nowadays shipping and maritime industry are more integrated in the general maritime governance than earlier when they were seen more as an entity of their own, at least mentally. This is true especially here in the Baltic Sea Region where we have environmentally aware maritime sector and high technological and management skills. We can safely say that Baltic Sea Region is a forerunner in clean shipping, however including Norway in the Baltic Sea Region is wise as Norway is investing heavily in it. Luckily we can continue the existing good collaboration with Norway and other countries in the Baltic Sea Region.

The Sulphur regulation has been a test bed and a game changer in the environmental attitudes of the shipping sector, and many of us have learned a lot during the process. Sulphur regulation was criticized heavily before coming into force especially from the economic point of view. There were also some scary views on paper and metal industries leaving for instance Finland due to elevated freight rates. However, after it came into force its effects of the logistics costs on Finnish firms have been calculated to be very small and not a cause to relocate industries. The paper industries are in problems due to many other reasons, though. It was a success in improving our air quality and thus saving lives and decreasing the number of sick days. The effects on environment, namely acidification are also relevant, although the regulation is mainly targeting human health.

Complying with Sulphur regulations has induced several innovations and BSR have been successful in offering solutions. What is worrisome, though, are that some of the solutions provided to tackle Sulphur regulations do not perform well in other respects. The information of the effects of the so called “Frankenstein-fuel” (i.e. Very Low Sulphur Fuel Oil, VLSFO) is still scarce but it may be destroying the ship engines and be very toxic to nature if leaked. Open-loop scrubbers transform the air emissions to water emissions and this is very problematic. Using Liquefied Natural Gas (methane) as fuel has many benefits but methane slip is a serious problem as it is a powerful greenhouse gas. Fixing these kind of unprecedented problems with novel regulation is an example where adaptive governance is part of the answer. Currently the process is very slow.

Adaptive maritime governance is also of essence when larger and larger sea areas are taken in human use. It is possible that building large facilities in the sea, i.e. wind parks, fish farms and platforms start to have cascading effects on the ecosystem by changing it in profound ways. The long-term environmental data sets of the Baltic Sea can reveal unprecedented effects and help in predicting the future. Not all effects are negative; however, for instance offshore structures will provide marine organisms with new hard substrate for colonization, thus acting as artificial reefs. The attitude towards environmental incentives are changing; the forward-looking people see welfare effects, business-opportunities and humans as part of the natural environment.

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