Transforming ‘blah blah blah’ into meaningful collaboration

There is no contest for shipping’s word of the year, it’s collaboration by a nautical mile.  Every event, panel, conference and white paper calls collaboration vital for decarbonisation and the enabler of digitalisation. The topic was front and centre at the Smart Maritime Network Copenhagen Conference where a panel chaired by Grant Hunter at BIMCO quizzed industry players on how to make the concept work in practice.

As an opener, Haris Zografakis confessed that as a Partner at Stephenson Harwood he spent 29 years of his life not collaborating. As Blue Visby Consortium Coordinator, he has focussed on solving one of the industry’s biggest challenges; ships sail fast between ports then wait for a berth, burning money and emitting carbon.

Collaboration in his experience has been “mostly blah, blah, blah”. There is a spectrum of options that can evolve to joint industry projects, joint development projects and joint ventures, “but these are not a solution, just steps. They raise awareness, but it is not sufficient,” he said.

Read the full article here.