Two themes looming large this year are information technology and sustainability; they are not new, but have seen a big ramp up throughout the transportation world.
While I’ve made jokes about Blockchain (even referring to “the dreaded B-word” more than once), the major liner shipping carriers, who have the potential to drive standardisation, or not, have indeed set their cooperation ship sailing. It was heartening to see an agenda item for the 2019 annual confab (which I will miss due to events
closer to home) for a session about port “communities”. “Big Data” (with the not-so-dreaded B-word fitting snugly in the midst of it) is really upon us.
The port has an important role to play in putting all layers of supply-chains onto the same page, by no means an easy job. Landlord type ports, who might consider themselves mainly in the property and leasing business might disagree. With “discretionary cargo” on the minds of port planners on all coasts, my retort would be that the value of that property, and the desirability of routing cargo through a particular port will depend, to a considerable extent, on how that port can fit into supply chain “eco-systems” (another
session topic at the convention), these days increasingly about information flow.
As we monitor coastal storms (this being hurricane season), “sustainability” is on everyone’s minds. In my work with deep sea ship finance, I have seen a trend where financiers of vessels are now set to be giving environmental matters more than just polite lip service. The same can be said of big cargo providers. Indeed, a consortium of major shipping funds providers (initially commercial banks, but soon expected to see an uptake across other types of debt, including providers of longer duration lease finance).
Ports of course have long been sensitive to broader social winds, but others in the chains (notably the carriers), not so much, historically. With reputational issues (which can also
be positive, not necessarily negative) always a concern, it would behove port finance folks to keep a weather eye on the broader E-S-G (environment, social, governance) matters, a different type of ecosystem, at the carriers calling there.