The interest in sustainability in the maritime industry has been on the rise. Attention has shifted from how to develop and comply with environmental regulation and labour standards to a more integrated view on sustainable maritime transport that aims at incorporating sustainability in maritime firm strategies. The liner shipping industry, which has been at the forefront, plays a crucial role in global supply chains, with its commitment to sustainable maritime container transport gaining recognition. In particular, procurement relationships stand out as an area where sustainability can exert the most significant impact. Ocean transport is among the most widely outsourced services globally both by shippers and by freight forwarders. Unlike bulk transport, container ocean transport is always outsourced, as shippers do not use their own vessels. Yet, the selection criteria that logistics firms use regarding sustainability when choosing ocean transport service providers and the role of sustainability in value creation among shippers/freight forwarders and ocean transport providers have been scarcely explored.
This article delves into value creation via quality improvement and sustainability practices in ocean freight transport. Employing a case study of an ocean carrier, alongside interviews and survey data, it explores how liner shipping companies can leverage high-quality and sustainable operations to enhance service for their clients and create logistics value. A novel aspect of this study is the application of sustainable supplier management concepts to maritime logistics, highlighting how shippers’ sustainability requirements in sourcing ocean freight services shape procurement relationships and how shipping companies can employ sustainable procurement strategies for value creation.
Led by the UN’s International Maritime Organization (IMO) and the EU, the shipping industry struggles to reduce its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to align with the Paris Agreement. Clean Cargo, the leading voluntary buyer–supplier forum for sustainability in the cargo shipping industry, developed some years ago a methodology to calculate and report the GHG emissions from containerships. The recently introduced carbon emission requirements by the IMO and EU have reinforced the members’ interest in a new Clean Cargo reporting mechanism that enables a more effective and efficient monitoring of the decarbonization progress. A better understanding of the user needs accompanied by due consideration to the regulatory environment and the technological advances are key to build this new framework. This paper builds on the case of the Clean Cargo initiative to (1) identify the stakeholders’ expectations and motivations for voluntary disclosure of environmental information, and (2) discuss the governance challenges of voluntary initiatives. A questionnaire was designed and deployed to investigate the current uses of Clean Cargo data and the information sharing among different stakeholders. Voluntary schemes can speed up the decarbonization process by proposing standards accepted by all actors of the global value chain. Clean Cargo members envision reporting on absolute GHG emissions per shipment as the way forward.
Ship-to-ship (STS) bunkering of liquid fuel, e.g., LNG, has emerged as a more practical way to ensure high bunkering volumes and good access without regional restrictions and upgrading of existing infrastructures at the port. Wave resonance in the narrow gap between side-by-side receiving vessel and bunkering vessel happens when the wave frequency is close to the natural frequency of the gap flow. Large wave elevation in the gap and hydrodynamic forces on the
ships are expected, thus reducing the time window of the bunkering operation and even risking the safety of the crew. It is well known that the wave frequency and amplitude can be affected by the presence of current. Correspondingly, the waves and loads on marine structures will be somewhat different from the scenario without current, which will have significant influence on the bunkering operation. However, few previous studies have reported in the literature for wave resonance considering current effect. In the present work, the finite-amplitude fluid resonance inside the gap between two ship cross-sections in side-by-side configuration is studied under combined waves and currents. Both a uniform current and a shear current with constant vorticity are considered. A fully nonlinear numerical wave tank is established based on the commercial CFD package STAR-CCM+. The unsteady Reynolds averaged Navier-Stokes turbulence model is applied to consider viscous dissipation. The volume of fluid method is applied to capture the free surface, and the flow field analytically obtained from the stream function method is specified in the forcing zones at upstream and downstream boundaries, respectively, by the user-defined wave elevation and velocity. The influence of following current on the wave amplitude in the gap and hydrodynamic load on the cross-sections is investigated by comparison with the cases without current. The relation between the wave or force amplitude and the vorticity of the shear is further analysed. The present study may provide useful results about gap resonance and hydrodynamic loads on two approaching marine structures during the bunkering operation in wave-current environment.