Container shipping lines have started a concerted effort to rehabilitate the industry’s battered public image, launching a campaign to show its environmental record is improving and that the industry’s record on security is good.
Growing criticism of the impact of shipping, particularly on the environment, has prompted lines to launch the Container Shipping Information Service.
There has been particularly strong criticism in Hong Kong – which, with neighbouring Shenzhen, handles about 28 per cent of world container movements – and southern California, which handles 40 per cent of US container imports.
Research published last year claimed 60,000 people died each year as the result of ships’ high levels of sulphate emissions.
The shipping lines are also nervous of growing calls in the US for all containers to be searched before being sent to the US, because of the perceived threat of a container-borne terrorist weapon. Information put out by the service, whose centrepiece is the website www.shipsandboxes.com, will stress the benefits brought by container shipping, particularly the sharp reduction in global transport costs achieved by the industry.
The service marks an unusual foray into the public arena by a group of senior executives at the world’s 24 largest container carriers. Many of its members, particularly the many family-controlled lines, are similarly publicity-shy.
“We might as well take a more proactive approach by establishing a platform like CSIS,” said Eivind Kolding, chief executive of Maersk Line.
The shipping lines reject criticism of their environmental record, saying large, modern container ships create far fewer emissions moving a tonne of cargo for a given distance than any other means of transport. Most lines have also reduced the speed of their ships in recent months, they point out. The move, intended to lower consumption of expensive fuel, has reduced carbon emissions.
Adolf Adrion, chief executive of the Box Club and a member of the board of Germany’s Hapag-Lloyd, the world’s number five line, said emissions from his line’s ships were down 35 per cent following a reduction in their average speed from 24 to 20 knots. That was even after taking into account the emissions produced by the extra ship needed to maintain weekly services with the slower speeds.
On security, Mr Kolding said all container lines’ cargo had to have proper documentation showing its contents and that lines were co-operating with new US rules obliging them to give customs officials details of US-bound containers before they are loaded on to ships.
He added that container shipping accounted for only a tiny proportion of products’ end-cost to consumers. Transport costs typically accounted for $15 (€10, £8) of the $700 cost of an Asian-manufactured television in the US, Mr Kolding said.
