Africa’s Maritime Industry is crucial for global sea lanes. The routes help to transport goods for all imports and exports in Africa. It became one of the world’s biggest shipping industries.

Africa’s improvement in the maritime industry bears positive impacts, especially on its socio-economic development. This impact is beneficial, particularly on coastal states. Yet, it also causes a challenge for the maritime sector.

The following article informs us about how to maintain environmental and social sustainability practices for the Maritime Industry.

Africa’s Maritime Industry and Sustainability

• Green Shipping.

Green shipping is made to lessen various negative impacts, particularly on human health and the environment. This method can decrease the use of preservation and helps to protect the environment from greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, including other pollutants.

In the usage, the “green” criterion involves the agreement to major International Maritime Organization (IMO) pollution-related organizations. Moreover, their protocols have been ratified by many coastal African countries.

The IMO has a strong commitment to sustainable improvement for Africa’s Maritime Industry. It is created to support modernization and technology transfer.

Over the past years, there is an increase in many forward-thinking companies designing eco-friendly ships. They use this kind of boat to be part of their operation.

• Marine Pollution.

Marine Pollution is one of the crucial issues in global environmental challenges. This issue will be faced by many generations ahead as 75 percent of the earth is covered by water.

Nowadays, shipping becomes the majority of the world’s business transportation. So, the increasing level of marine pollution is unavoidable.

The shipping industry is known for its performance in environmental and social protection. It presents a great effort in preventing and responding to oil spills because those things are a visible impact on marine pollution.

Africa’s Maritime Industry and Sustainability

• Atmospheric Emission.

The pollution carried by the shipping industry is not merely marine pollution. The fuels used by the boat is also one of the major causes of atmospheric pollution.

The fuel produces carbon dioxide (CO2) as well as other gas emissions and is released into the air freely. This gas contributes almost 1 billion tons of CO2 yearly.

By the increase of shipping in Africa’s Maritime Industry, it will increase the consumption of fuel. The air emissions carried by shipping remain to grow significantly.

However, IMO creates a strategy to lessen the atmospheric emission. All ships are required to have an implementing mandatory action for effective implementation. Its short term strategy includes the expansion of technical plus operational energy that can bring efficiency standards for ships.

Then, it presents the national action plan to support the reduction of GHG emissions. We can see now ships with renewable energy supplies, including the infrastructure support in the low-carbon fuels.

This plan makes the shipping companies adopt new technology. So, all new ships should produce GHG emissions to support 30 percent emission reduction for 2025.