“We need to keep explaining the real story that shipping is a force for good that has made trade affordable for decades and created prosperity around the world,” Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) CEO Soren Toft told delegates in his keynote address at the London International Shipping Week conference this week. “Producers who in the past could only serve a local market now have the entire world at their feet.”
He stressed, however, that the shipping sector needed to improve reliable service for customers, digitise operations for efficiency, and create digital solutions to meet customer demands - while continuing to invest in decarbonising global trade.
Toft added his support to that of other shipping lines to reach net-zero CO2 emissions by 2050, reiterating MSC’s call for a global market-based measure, potentially incorporating carbon pricing that could help catalyse the urgently required development at scale of zero-emission marine fuel solutions from energy companies.
He said MSC also supported the proposed creation of a global multi-billion-dollar decarbonisation fund, overseen by the UN IMO, to provide financial capital for R&D.