Participation of the Department of Port Management and Shipping in the London International Shipping Week (LISW) 2023 and presentation of the ‘ESG Index for Maritime Business’

London International Shipping Week (LISW) 2023

The Department of Port Management and Shipping of the NKUA’s School of Economics and Political Sciences recently accepted an honorary invitation and participated in the London International Shipping Week (LISW) 2023. During this international maritime event, the Department actively engaged with two leading fora, namely ‘Transparency in Shipping and Bunkering’ (Organized by Petrospot Ltd under the auspices of the leading law firm Norton Rose Fullbright) and ‘The Time for Change is NOW!’ (Organized by the Women’s International Shipping and Trading Association-WISTA under the auspices of Seatrade Maritime News).

The NKUA’s Department of Port Management and Shipping, in conjunction with Plymouth Business School, UK, presented at LISW the ‘ESG Index for Maritime Business’, an innovative research study it has been carrying out systematically for the past three years. The study focuses on critical strategic concerns for the shipping industry, including climate change and the environment (Environmental), social issues (Social), and corporate governance (Governance).

Research Team

Participating in the team that conducted the research were—from the NKUA’s Department of Port Management and Shipping—Professor Theodoros Syriopoulos, Chair of the Department, Assistant Professor Michael Tsatsaronis, and Georgia Boura, a PhD candidate and—as research partner from Plymouth Business School—Assistant Professor Stavros Karamperidis, Head of the Maritime Transport Research Group. Representing the Research Team at the LISW event was Dr Michael Tsatsaronis on the part of the NKUA’s Department of Port Management and Shipping and Dr Stavros Karamperidis on the part of Plymouth Business School.

Key objectives

In a dynamically changing business environment for global shipping, the Research Team makes an innovative scientific contribution to addressing critical concerns of the international maritime community, interacting with leading institutional and corporate stakeholders, such as BIMCO, the Sustainable Shipping Initiative, the West P&I Club, and the Poseidon Principles Initiative. The original empirical study ‘ESG Index for Maritime Business’ proposes an integrated reference framework and modern approaches to measuring the impact of ESG strategies on global shipping.

The suggested methodological framework and the ESG strategies evaluation tool (ESG Index) take into consideration the unique characteristics of the shipping market and incorporate the evaluative judgements made by top shipping experts on the integration of crucial ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) criteria into international shipping. The empirical study proposes a tangible and flexible benchmarking framework for comparing ESG practices in shipping and port companies and a powerful modern tool for all shipping market stakeholders (shipping companies, charterers, financiers, bunkering companies, shipbrokers, investors, funds, etc.) to develop effective management strategies.

During the London International Shipping Week, the user-friendly web page of the project (www.theesgindex.org) was presented for stakeholders to have direct access.

Through this web page, shipping companies that voluntarily provide their data in the specific questions of each ESG factor can get an initial evaluation of their ESG performance.