While ESG principles dominate boardroom discussions, the question remains: are they truly reflected in day-to-day vessel selection? This article draws on RightShip’s pulse survey and interviews with maritime stakeholders to uncover whether safety, sustainability, and crew welfare translate from policy into practice.
While both charterers and shipowners affirm the importance of these ESG pillars, cost pressures, time constraints, and market fragmentation often tip the balance back towards traditional economics. Safety has become the essential “gatekeeper” – nothing proceeds without it. But once that bar is cleared, price and availability take precedence. This dynamic leaves environmental performance and crew welfare conditional, inconsistently valued, and frequently unrewarded.
Our pulse check across the maritime supply chain reveals a striking misalignment between commitments to safety, sustainability, and crew welfare, and the way commercial decisions are ultimately made.
Pulse check findings:
When selecting vessels, 73% claim that safety records and investments in risk reduction solutions significantly or critically influence chartering decisions. 47% rank vessel safety as their top priority above other ESG factors.
Do shipowners go beyond baseline in ESG?
73% exceed compliance in safety, 67% exceed standards in crew welfare, and 60% go beyond baseline in sustainability.
87% feel commercial pressures have caused charterers to deprioritise higher-ESG vessels in favour of cheaper or more available ones.
What limits charterers from offering better terms to owners exceeding ESG baselines?
60% say tight profit margins limit their ability to select vessels with higher ESG standards. 53% cite short deadlines or urgent delivery demands.
Charterers have limited transparency or clarity of vessel ESG credentials: only 7% have mechanisms to assess crew welfare during negotiations, and 53% say limited transparency influences their decisions.
Ports also rarely evaluate shipowners’ ESG efforts – 75% said “sometimes,” and 25% said “rarely.”
77% of solution providers believe solutions that drive financial savings play a critical role in investment decisions, while only 36% believe technologies for crew welfare play a major role.
Finally, 80% of respondents said the industry lacks a shared understanding of what “good performance” in ESG truly means.
To explore how the maritime industry can anchor safety, sustainability, and crew welfare at the heart of vessel selection, read the full thought leadership report, From Pledges to Practice: Anchoring Safety, Sustainability, and Crew Welfare in Vessel Selection, commissioned by RightShip.
