CNCo is a founding member and an active participant of the Sustainable Shipping Initiative (SSI). The SSI is a coalition of shipping leaders from around the world, formed to take practical steps to tackle some of the sector's greatest opportunities and challenges. The Group is working to achieve a vision "of an industry in which sustainability equals success". By being an active member of the SSI, CNCo works alongside competitors, regulators, suppliers, financial institutions etc., united by the common goal to show that collaborative action is possible, and to mobilise support across the whole shipping supply chain, demonstrating that shipping can contribute to and (will only) thrive by operating in a sustainable manner.
CNCo was also a lead company in the SSI's Sustainable Ship Recycling Working Group which evolved during 2017 into the Ship Recycling Transparency Initiative (SRTI). SRTI's vision is of a world where ships are recycled responsibly – socially, environmentally and economically – meeting and going beyond international conventions and norms.
It aims to:
CNCo joined Getting to Zero 2030 Coalition in September 2019 together with more than 90 companies within the maritime, energy, infrastructure and finance sectors, supported by key governments and intergovernmental organisations (IGOs). The Getting to Zero Coalition is a partnership between the Global Maritime Forum, the Friends of Ocean action, and the World Economic Forum.
To curb the emissions from shipping, the IMO has agreed on an ambition to reduce GHG emissions from shipping by at least 50% by 2050. To reach this goal and to make the transition to full decarbonisation possible, commercially viable zero emission vessels must start entering the global fleet by 2030, with their numbers to be radically scaled up through the 2030s and 2040s. This will require both developing the vessels as well as the future fuel supply chain, which can only be done through close collaboration and deliberate collective action between the maritime industry, the energy sector, the financial sector, and governments and IGOs.
Other regional initiatives
In 2019, CNCo joined the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) Sustainable Business Network (ESBN) and Task Force on Disaster and Climate Risk Reduction. ESBN was set up to drive businesses in working towards the 2030 Sustainable Agenda and associated Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Under the Moana Taka Partnership (MTP) we help to remove waste from the Pacific Islands in partnership with the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP). SPREP is a long-term partner of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), and CNCo is now working with UNEP Head Office in Geneva to assist the MTP to be replicated by other shipping companies in the Indian Ocean and the Caribbean.
In August 2019, CNCo attended a roundtable organised by ESCAP and sponsored by Singapore's Maritime Port Authority. The roundtable focused on strategies to augment long-distance tsunami monitoring. Data from ships' Global Positioning Systems can be processed to remove the local sea and swell "noise", to give each ship's height above mean sea level and thus show a long-distance tsunami wave. These can have as little as 20 cm height in open ocean but move as fast as a jet plane, over 450 knots, and can cross the entire Pacific Ocean in less than a day. As the waves enter shallow water near land, they slow to approximately 20 or 30 mph, but also increase to a height, such as nine metres in the case of the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami that killed 230,000 people in 11 Asian countries around the Indian Ocean.
CNCo is hoping to run a pilot scheme to prove the viability, of this virtually user-intervention-free and very low-cost system, in 2020 - 2021, as our contribution to the Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021 - 2030). This is to support efforts to reverse the cycle of decline in ocean health and gather ocean stakeholders worldwide behind a common framework. The framework will ensure ocean science can fully support countries in creating improved conditions for sustainable development of the ocean and mitigate loss of life at the coastal regions of islands and around the edges of oceans.
James Woodrow
Managing Director, CNCo
Photo credit - top of page: Captain Ranaweera C.M., Master of MV Pakhoi
Sustainable Ship Recycling
The fifth Steering Committee Meeting for the Global Environment Facility – Pacific Alliance for Sustainability (GEFPAS) Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) Release Reduction Project highlighted a number of waste management issues in the Pacific.
Similarly, Plasticity Pacific, a plastic sustainability conference, discussed key issues with regards to plastic waste and its management. In both conferences, the difficulty in the transportation of waste for recycling was brought to attention.
Moana Taka Partnership (MTP) is a cost-effective way of transporting non-commercialised waste products from one country to another. MTP allows for CNCo vessels to carry containers of recyclable waste from eligible Pacific Island ports, on pro bono basis, to be sustainably treated and recycled in suitable ports in the Asia Pacific.
Below: A container for recyclable waste
