ESG in Maritime event hosted by the Malta Maritime Forum

ESG being Environmental, Social and Governance is a framework used to assess a company’s  business practices together with performance of various sustainability and ethical issues.  

This was discussed in detail at the event hosted by the Malta Maritime Forum ‘ESG in Maritime’ attended by Dr Fleur Delia, Senior Associate, where the different elements which make up ESG were analysed.

The EU Corporate Sustainability Regulation Directive (CSRD) effective from 5th January 2023 is the legislation that requires EU businesses to disclose their environmental and social impact and how their ESG actions affect their business.  

There has been a lot of discussion at IMO with respect to addressing the environmental impact in shipping. The recently revised IMO strategy includes an important target of near –zero greenhouse gas emissions of at least 5% by 2030. 

The various reporting frameworks were discussed in the interest of accountability and the importance of identifying which framework is most appropriate for the particular company.  

Governance factors represents the values of the organisation, setting the “Tone from the Top” and regulating boundaries of behaviour.  It was noted that companies aligning with ESG besides satisfying regulatory requirements have a competitive advantage and perform better in the long-term.

Whilst banks are running materiality assessments of its customers and launching products in order to incentivize more on green, companies are in turn providing transition plans to banks. It is both a challenging and balancing act between how ambitious to be vis-à-vis also the competitive environment.