Shipping industry at the moment is going through drastic self evaluation process under the flag of IMO as this is the only industry which does not come under any government and hence under Kyoto Protocol either. IMO is busy in formulating ways of how to make ships accountable for their GHG emissions and therefore big shipping companies such as Maersk are taking proactive approach and making such policies.
Another influencing factor is that large shipping companies have big GHG footprint due to their operations. e.g. in case of Maersk, around 40% of GHG emission of Denmark comes from Maersk (although its not solely due to ships but due to organization building etc) and this probably forces indirectly Maersk to have concrete environmental policy and same is true for other companies as well. Therefore if you combined both these aspects (IMO initiative and Maersk's own position in Denmark), you will find Maersk has much more incentive to have a sound 'sustainability / environmental policy' rather than not having. And this is true for other companies as well.
Once a company creates a policy, it may not sell the same policy openly to its customers telling what was exact reason and therefore it sells the policy by putting some cover on it and that cover is called 'value added'. So when Maersk started having GHG footprint, it showed its customers a different reason than what it has but in either case it was far better than what other companies in industry are doing.
Another point is about slowing down ships to reduce GHG emission, in my opinion it is also two way process. Its not solely due to motivation of reducing GHG emission but it depends on demand and supply of customers whose containers are on those ships. If you are aware of supply chain industry, then you will be knowing just-in-time(JIT) system where manufacturing company wants its goods to be delivered at exact moment. But I suppose in slow economy (when demand is not high), every manufacturing company could not follow JIT and therefore they can be little slack, which gives a shipping company time to slow the ship, increase fuel efficiency(ship's engine perform best at slower at speed than at their highest rated speed, this is another point and I will touch about this in next article), reduce fuel consumption (at slow and optimum speed fuel is less consumed) which in consequence reduces GHG emissions. But, since everyone is not aware of other benefits(rather not interested) company promulgates whole thing as if it is driven solely by the desire to reduce GHG emission.
Another influencing factor is that large shipping companies have big GHG footprint due to their operations. e.g. in case of Maersk, around 40% of GHG emission of Denmark comes from Maersk (although its not solely due to ships but due to organization building etc) and this probably forces indirectly Maersk to have concrete environmental policy and same is true for other companies as well. Therefore if you combined both these aspects (IMO initiative and Maersk's own position in Denmark), you will find Maersk has much more incentive to have a sound 'sustainability / environmental policy' rather than not having. And this is true for other companies as well.
Once a company creates a policy, it may not sell the same policy openly to its customers telling what was exact reason and therefore it sells the policy by putting some cover on it and that cover is called 'value added'. So when Maersk started having GHG footprint, it showed its customers a different reason than what it has but in either case it was far better than what other companies in industry are doing.
Another point is about slowing down ships to reduce GHG emission, in my opinion it is also two way process. Its not solely due to motivation of reducing GHG emission but it depends on demand and supply of customers whose containers are on those ships. If you are aware of supply chain industry, then you will be knowing just-in-time(JIT) system where manufacturing company wants its goods to be delivered at exact moment. But I suppose in slow economy (when demand is not high), every manufacturing company could not follow JIT and therefore they can be little slack, which gives a shipping company time to slow the ship, increase fuel efficiency(ship's engine perform best at slower at speed than at their highest rated speed, this is another point and I will touch about this in next article), reduce fuel consumption (at slow and optimum speed fuel is less consumed) which in consequence reduces GHG emissions. But, since everyone is not aware of other benefits(rather not interested) company promulgates whole thing as if it is driven solely by the desire to reduce GHG emission.
But these steps should be welcomed by the industry as these steps drive other shipping companies to work for greener and sustainable environment.
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