SEEMP and its Barriers in Commercial Shipping

The greenhouse gas study by the International Maritime Organization estimates the total CO2 emissions by the shipping industry in 2012 was 2.7% of global CO2 emissions. Unless the shipping industry takes some control measures, by 2050 these emissions are expected to increase by up to 250% from their 2012 levels. Although the cost reducing effects of some measures and new technologies are well established, shipping companies appear reluctant to adopt them. It has been found in the study that the barriers for implementation of all cost-free operational measures are almost the same for all countries such as lack of awareness and competence of ship crews (46%), operational difficulties of measures (38%) and lack of information of measures (31%). On the other hand, the financial issue (66%) and owner's interest (43%) are the key barriers for some other operational measures which are related to costing and need investment for implementation. In this study, 75% stakeholders have agreed that for technical operational measures, ship crews and technical managers have very high influences while for measures related to costing, the ship owners and managers have very high influences.