THE INTERNATIONAL Chamber of Shipping will celebrate its centenary next week, ahead of its Shaping the Future of Shipping summit.
The ICS was established in 1921. The global body will celebrate 100 years of industry representation on Monday 20 June 2022 at the National Maritime Museum in London, where will host a special centenary dinner with 500 attendees from around the world.
ICS said the occasion offers a chance for the body to reflect on a “constantly changing industry” and to look to the future as it supports shipowners, especially as the industry navigates a green transition.
The day after the centenary dinner, the ICS will host an executive and ministerial summit to act on decarbonisation, to be attended by chief executives and political decision-makers from around the world.
The ICS said its hope is that the private sector will put into motion actions which will enable shipping and associated industries to catalyse their green transition.
The summit follows a meeting of the International Maritime Organization’s Marine Environment Protection Committee last week, at which the IMO reportedly rejected the ICS’s proposal to establish a research and development fund for decarbonisation projects across the sector.
In a statement released at the time, ICS secretary general Guy Platten said the fund would be at the top of the agenda for the upcoming summit.
ICS chairman Esben Poulsson said the ICS, at it reaches its centenary milestone, must always be forward-looking in how it can support its members.
“At this landmark moment, lessons learned from the past century will help equip us for the next, and nowhere will this be more pertinent than in how the global fleet deals with the challenges of decarbonisation,” Mr Poulsson said.
He said the industry is at a crossroad, and summits such as Shaping the Future of Shipping have the capacity to influence the industry’s direction over the next century.
“Decarbonisation strategies come with high risks, which is why it is important to have critical discussions to determine the framework for the future and to deliver concrete solutions,” he said.
“Shipping urgently needs zero-carbon fuels to be available on a commercial scale, and the only way to do this is to accelerate their production.”
Mr Poulsson said the ICS intends for its summit to create tangible actions to guide the industry through what he described as one of its greatest challenges.
“Shipping cannot decarbonise without governments; however, we cannot continue to put ourselves at the mercy of bureaucracy.”
