Author: Robert Sanga
Abstract
Environmental issue in maritime
supply chains raised up due to global warming. This phenomenon needs to be
investigated. In fact, there have been a lot of investigations about it. This
essay will cover up the use of ship and shipping industry in general, then go
on to the supply chain system and the effect it has toward the environment.
Conclusion will be made with some suggestions for improvement and transforming
shipping industry into environmental friendly medium of transport.
Keyword: Environment,
Shipping, Transport & logistics, Supply Chain system.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Introduction
The Oxford dictionary (2017) defined the
environment “the natural world, as a whole or in a particular geographical
area, especially as affected by human activity.” This definition explains
environment as the natural world which consists of the air, land, sea and all
the living things on earth. This natural world of environment can be greatly
affected by different activities created by nature itself and human, including
animals.
Maritime activities have to deal with transporting
goods and passenger through ship from port to port. Professor Umar Burki
(Supply Chain Management, 2017) explained in one of his lectures that “a supply
chain is dynamic process and involves constant flow of information, products
and exchange of assets.” In other word, maritime supply chain has a broader
definition since it has to do not only with transporting raw material, finished
goods, products and passengers but also the require information’s as well.
There are different ways of transporting products
from one place to another. It can be done by using pipeline, airway, seaway and
roadway. Seaway transport by using ship as medium of transport is commonly used
since ancient time. It’s suitable when it comes to transporting large amount of
goods for a long distant transport. Airway and roadway are much quicker but way
too expensive in compare to seaway for transporting large amount of goods.
Shipping plays a very important role in global
supply chains system. For this reason, the demand for shipping keeps on
increasing each year. This essay will try to answer the question on the effect
of shipping toward environment. In doing so, it will takes a look at different
type of ships, their trading routes and come up with recommendation to reduce
the negative impact of maritime to the environment.
Ship and Trading Routes
Catherine Bjune (Ship Operation, 2016) explained
that shipping is one of the oldest medium of transport systems. It’s considered
to have been used for more than five thousand year. Since then there are
different type of ships which were designed and operated. There had been a lot
of development and innovation made toward shipping.
Professor Kenn Steger-Jensen (Supply Chain
Management, 2017) had rightly pointed out in one of his lectures that “the
typical cost of transporting a 20 foot container from Asia to Europe carrying
over 20 tonnes of cargo is about the same as the economy airfare for a single
passenger on the same journey.” As such, there is no other good alternative
medium of transports in comparison to the seaway transport for transporting
large amount of goods from one continent to another.
There are varieties of goods being transported
through ship. These goods can be mainly classified into raw material or
finished goods. Transporting those goods across continents has great
effect on the environment. It’s a part of supply chains system. It’s good that
we have a good transport system but this come with a price which needs to be
addressed nationally and internationally.
Ship is basically use for trading whenever and
wherever there is a demand for it. Ship owner can register their ships to any
particular country, even to landlocked countries such as Pakistan and Nepal.
After registration, the ship can then be used to trade. The ship then has to
follow the rule and regulation of the flag state.
Ship Overseas (2017) has group international ships
into six groups. These are 1) Cargo ship, 2) RoRo (Roll on Roll Off), 3)
Tankers, 4) Passengers ships, 5) Fishing vessel, and 6) High speed craft. It’s
important to identify those groups and their function as well.
It’s cargo ship which transports all the major
daily use consumer goods around the globe. These goods can be such as food,
furniture, clothes and machinery. RoRo (Roll on Roll Off) type of ship is
basically use for transporting the vehicles as rolling on and rolling off the
vehicles from the ship is much quicker with RoRo ship than any other type of
ships.
Tankers ships are for transporting liquid products
such as oil and different chemicals in large quantities. The size of the ship
depends on the product which the ship is designed to transport. For example,
the Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) vessels carrying gas from Arabian Gulf to Asia
must have the capacity of carrying at least one hundred thousand tons.
Passenger ship, fishing vessel and high speed
craft have some limitation in their activities and operations. For instance,
cruise ships are basically use for leisure while fishing vessels have to follow
the limit granted by the authorities in fishing the fishes from the ocean. And
high speed craft are not that much use in transporting passengers since airline
took over as medium of transporting passenger’s for long distant after the
Second World War was over in September, 1945 (US Centennial of flight
commission, 2017).
The above mentioned six groups of ships have
different trading routes for both national and international level trading.
It’s beneficial for a company to outsource their production at a place where
they can easily access raw materials. Wages and cost of production play a crucial
role for most of the European, American and Australian companies in outsourcing
their companies to Asia, Africa and Latin America.
As a result of increase trading between different
companies and from continent to continent, there is significant increase of
third-party logistics (3PL). Yue Wu (2012) explained 3PL as external companies
/ suppliers which provide a range of logistics services to their clients, such
as transportation, warehousing, distribution, and so on.
Canal like Panama and Suez were constructed as to
reduce the long distant in transporting goods. Classes and sizes of ships were
designed in accordance with those canals. Crude oil tanker like Panamax,
Aframax, Suezmax have the capacity of carrying more than one hundred thousand
Deadweight Tonnage (DWT) of crude oil (Maritime Connector, 2017). Canal has
contributed new trading routes between underdeveloped, developing and developed
countries.
Effect of Shipping toward Environment
Most of the modern ships are run by different type
of fuels which are harmful for the environment. CO2 emission
and other harmful substance such as sulfur oxides (SOx), nitrogen oxides (NOx),
particular matter (PM) from the ship are not only harmful to human health but
also to marine environments (Poulsen, Ponte and Lister, 2015). These emissions
are more harmful to those who are living in cities closed to the ports (Toxic
shipping, 2013).
Moreover, there is always risk of accident with
the ship due to bad weather or human error. A container ship and a big tanker
ship accident could easily result disaster to the environment. Even gigantic
ship like “Titanic” sank in the Atlantic Ocean on 15.04.1912. The ship was
considered to be unsinkable but it sank because of the iceberg colliding
(History of Titanic, 2017). Such accidents were not very common but
it had happened and continues to happen even to these days.
The International Maritime Organization (IMO) was
founded in 1948 for safety, security and environmental performance of
international shipping (IMO history, 2017). It has adopted important
conventions like International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS,
1974), International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships,
(MARPOL, 1973) and International Convention on Standards of Training,
Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers (STCW). These conventions had
helped in reducing both pollution and accident but it’s not an easy task to
control all the negative environmental effects of shipping.
Recommendation
It’s no doubt that shipping is the bloodline of
world trade. Without shipping the import and export of goods on the scale necessary
for the modern world would not be possible (International Chamber of Shipping,
2017). However, all these benefits come with a price on environment and human.
Therefore, it’s recommended that there should be a
checkup system for all the IMO member countries in implementing all of the
conventions of the organizations. Paris Agreement, 2015 should be honor by
underdeveloped, developing and developed countries so that all those legally
binding climate deals are achieved. Both consumers and ship owners should
work together toward achieving greener and environmental friendly
ships. Third party logistics (3PL) provider should works toward giving a
better integrate and effective logistics system. More research should be
made in order to use more on cleaner fuel like Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG),
Compressed Natural Gas (CNG), wind power and even battery ships.
Conclusion
In answering the question on “the effect of
shipping toward environment” this essay has covered topics on different type of
ships and their functions, trading routes and pointed out some effects of
shipping toward the environments and made some recommendation for improvement.
Professor Umar (2017) has rightly concluded in one of his lectures that
environmental upgrading is not likely to make substantial difference unless it
is supported by clear, stable and enforceable global regulation.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
References
Bjune, Cathrine (Autumn 2016). Ship
Operations: Master in Maritime Management, HBV Publishing, Horten.
Climate Action (Retrieved 30.03.2018, from the
website: https://ec.europa.eu/clima/policies/international/negotiations/paris_en
History of Titanic (Retrieved on 28.03.2017)
website address: http://www.historyofthetitanic.org/100-years-titanic.html
IMO History (Retrieved on 30.03.2017) website
address: http://www.imo.org/en/About/HistoryOfIMO/Pages/Default.aspx
Maritime Connector (Retrieved on 30.03.2017) from
website address: http://maritime-connector.com/wiki/ship-sizes/
Oxford living dictionary, Oxford University Press
(Retrieved on 17.03.2017) at https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/environment
Professor Burki, Umar (Spring 2017), Supply
Chain Management lectures notes, University of Southeast Norway.
Professor Steger-Jensen, Kenn (Spring 2017), Supply
Chain Management lectures notes, University of Southeast Norway.
Paulina Golisnka & Carlos Andres Romano
(August 2, 2012), “Environmental Issues in Supply Chain Management – Main
Challenges” (Retrieved on 17.03.2017) from the website: http://www.europeanfinancialreview.com/?p=1568
Rene`Taudal Poulsen, Stefano Ponte, Jane Lister
(December, 2015) «Buyer-driven greening? Cargo-owners and environmental
upgrading in maritime shipping” Geoforum, journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/geoforum
Ship Overseas (Retrieved on 18.03.2017) from
website address: https://www.shipoverseas.com/blog/6-different-types-of-international-ships/
Toxic shipping (2013), documentation
broadcasted first time at NRK on 22. 02. 2017, website address: https://tv.nrk.no/program/KOID28004013/giftig-skipsfart
US Central Flight Commission (Retrieved on
25.03.2017) website address: http://www.centennialofflight.net/essay/Commercial_Aviation/PostWWII/Tran26.htm
Yue Wu (2012), “A duel-response strategy for
global logistics under uncertainty: a case study of a third-party logistics
company” (Retrieved on 01.04.2017) from website address: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1475-3995.2011.00839.x/full
No comments:
Post a Comment