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But alongside this, there is a widening gap between ambition being communicated and the status quo in most of the industry outside the first mover group leading the way. There is still a limited seafarer voice in decisionmaking, welfare is rarely part of commercial decisions, and the split incentive issue is largely unresolved.
Geopolitical pressure is now adding new stress onto an incompletely recovered system. Rerouting extends voyages and time away from family. Sanctions create compliance anxiety for crew who had no say in their employer’ s decisions. The shadow fleet has grown, and the people on those vessels are among the most exposed in the industry.
So, progress is real but it’ s also insufficient.
How can industry collaboration help close the gap between policy and practice and what role can Singapore play in raising global crew welfare standards? Policy isn’ t the only bottleneck. The MLC sets a strong baseline, and frameworks exist and amendments are incoming. But the gap between policy and practice is a transparency and incentive problem and regulatory change is slow by its nature. When we’ re looking at industry-led solutions for which there is a huge appetite, collaboration helps because it solves the collective action problem: if enough of the market moves together, the incentive structure can change. That’ s why this work must be multi-stakeholder.
Singapore is significant and underutilized on welfare. It handles a huge share of global traffic, hosts influential owners, charterers and financiers, and has the regulatory authority to make its signals matter globally. What we found in April is that the motivation to lead is growing.
What practical steps should the industry on seafarer welfare take over the next twelve months? There are four aspects, which is already a lot given how much we have going on across industry.
Firstly, committing to piloting a recognition mechanism in time charter decisions. We will be working with partners including Rightship and DNV to develop this. We will need owners to put vessels forward, charterers to use the output in procurement, and inspection bodies and vetting processes to integrate welfare data into existing workflows.
Charterers have signaled an interest in further collaboration which would be game-changing. The collective action problem doesn’ t solve itself but a group of major charterers agreeing to preference recognized vessels is what breaks the deadlock.
Financiers need to start asking the welfare question now. They risk having exposed portfolios if we don’ t see the likes of the Poseidon Principles integrating social considerations, and we’ re talking to them about what that could look like.
Bring seafarers into the design. Any mechanism without genuine input and crew representation in its governance will lack the legitimacy to drive real change. ■
Ellie Besley-Gould www. sustainableshipping. org
Ellie Besley-Gould is CEO of the Sustainable Shipping Initiative, where she leads work with organizations across the maritime sector to accelerate progress on sustainability. She is responsible for SSI’ s strategy, partnerships and delivery, supporting collective action that drives practical change in shipping.
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