Momoko Kitada

Maritime Energy Management

Maritime Energy Management (MEM) is (a) the study of energy flows such as supply, transformation, storage, production and consumption in the extensive maritime domain, which includes ships, ports, shipbuilding yards and ship-breaking activities, as well as (b) how this energy and its sources are optimised to manage consumption and reduce wastage in order to limit environmental and economic impacts of energy use.

Absent Mother Sailors: How Possible Is It to Do the Impossible?

This paper examines how women seafarers on merchant cargo ships balance work and family life, particularly when they become a mother. Thirty-six women seafarers, including ten mothers, were interviewed. Their biggest concern was marriage and family, and they tend to face the issue of agency—individuals’ capacity of making their own choices freely and acting independently. In other words, when marriage and family issues come into their lives, can women feel free to choose whether they continue seafaring or quit? In the sample, only five mothers either stayed at sea or returned to ship after the children were grown up. Those mothers who remained working at sea tended to encounter new challenges relating to their sense of motherhood, as well as their children’s emotional relationship with the mothers. The study addresses the impact of mother’s absence from home, both on mothers and their children. The paper concludes that it is not totally impossible for women seafarers to continue working at sea after having children, however, women’s agency may be constantly challenged by their domestic gender roles, when they try to balance work and family life.

Arctic Governance and Gender: Climate Change or Social Change?

Under the philosophy of corporate social responsibility (CSR), organisation’s social responsibility is often also seen as extending beyond the organisational boundaries, both by the organisation itself and its surroundings. Companies may be seen as holding a certain amount of responsibility for its local community by way of providing stable employment, by way of contributing financially and otherwise to local institutions and cultural organisations and by way of becoming a political actor when vital local issues are felt to be at stake. This chapter argues how industry as well as government actors in our opinion have a responsibility for the social inclusion of women in their dealings on all levels. As an illustration, we have chosen to examine gender issues in the Arctic region on a broad level. The reason why the Arctic is chosen as an illustration is that the region is of particular significance to the maritime industry due to the increasing interest of shipping companies to expand business opportunities here (e.g., new shipping routes, new tourism opportunities, etc.). Also, the Arctic region is highly environmentally sensitive. Lastly, the Arctic region includes countries that like to look upon themselves as “gender equal”. Thus, our example will illuminate economic as well as environmental and social aspects within a CSR mode of thought, although our emphasis will be on the extended social responsibility concerning gender issues.

The Need for Education and Training in Maritime Energy Management in Myanmar

This paper discusses the role of education and training to implement the energy efficiency measures in the Myanmar maritime industry. There are notable merits in Myanmar, for example, its geographical advantage in maritime operations and services, ports and shipyards, natural resources such as oil and gas, and general characteristics of Myanmar people. However, several weaknesses are acknowledged, for example, pollution, unregulated domestic fleets, exploitation of natural resources, and the lack of awareness. Among the various issues to be solved, the paper identifies education and training as the key to building capacity in Myanmar and investing in people as a long-term strategy. The current academic and research activities in maritime education and training institutions in Myanmar indicate a positive start. In order to accelerate the process to shift toward a zero emissions and energy efficient future, the paper identifies four areas: Legislation; Research collaboration and dissemination; IMO model course; and Regional cooperation. Finally the paper presents a hierarchical model to operationalise these areas to support maritime energy management in Myanmar.

The Role of Maritime Transport from the Perspective of Energy and Gender: The Case of the Pacific Islands

This paper discusses sustainable use of energy from a feminist perspective and focuses on the role of the maritime transport sector in terms of energy access for rural women as users of maritime transport. In many parts of the world, the priorities of energy use tend to be gendered. Women are often excluded from the decision-making process of energy choice and access. In the Pacific Islands where adequate recycling facilities and markets are not easily accessible, wastes are a big concern for the environment. The emerging concept of “circular economy” to close the loop of product life-cycles poses a challenge but also an opportunity for many Pacific Islands communities. For example, some rural women entrepreneurs found a business opportunity in waste management to participate in the circular economy. However, one of the biggest obstacles they encountered was reliable access to ships to transport collected recycling items (e.g., used batteries) to recycling facilities overseas. In this paper, we argue that the gendered nature of maritime transport may be limiting its capacity to provide services to minority users like women and ask in which role the maritime transport sector would be effectively able to support women’s contributions to establishing a sustainable, energy efficient society. The paper concludes that the missing link between women’s economic participation and the maritime transport sector, required to enable sustainable development of the Pacific Islands, should be recognised as part of the energy and gender agenda.

Impacts of CSR on Women in the Maritime Sector

This chapter offers a comprehensive view of the development of women’s integration in the maritime sector and examines the impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives by shipping companies on gender equality and equity in shipping. CSR often includes gender equality within their diversity policies in line with other CSR elements. However, this paper argues that the inclusion of gender issues within a wider norm of diversities might have weakened the voice of women. The impact of CSR also seems to be limited to large shipping companies only, because medium and small firms are unlikely to be motivated due to their smaller business scales for the promotion of women. The paper recognises the need of combined efforts from both legal and social initiatives to promote women in the maritime industry. A cooperation between public and private sectors will create a synergy effect to promote maritime women from international to national levels.

Developing a Strategy for Liquefied Natural Gas Powered Transport Corridors in the Baltic Sea Region

An extended number of international and/or national policies/regulations call for major improvements in contemporary energy consumption patterns (energy efficiency). A faster transition to sustainable energy production, as well as the introduction of various measures to improve the maritime industry’s environmental performance is also included in similar high level policy initiatives, with the establishment of Sulphur Emission Control Areas (SECAs) by the International Maritime Organization (IMO). One of the most prominent ways forward to achieve a more “environmental-friendly footprint” for those vessels engaged in maritime transport activities is to expand the use of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG). Despite being of fossil origin, LNG is considered to be an important step toward cleaner shipping, given the better properties of the related exhaust gases when it is used as a marine fuel of internal combustion engines. The analysis at hand will discuss the development of a strategy for smoother and more efficient use of LNG as a fuel for transport needs in the Baltic Sea Region (BSR), with the aim of enabling “blue transport corridors”. This will be accomplished by investigating the related transport flows and LNG infrastructure developments; the creation of a wider in scope value chain that incorporates all transport modalities and industries that use natural gas today is also envisioned as the next step of research. This activity is a deliverable of the “Go LNG project”. Another important task within the same project is to provide stakeholders and other interested parties with a knowledge base of the most influential policies/regulations and technological standards in relation to LNG applications, including the cataloguing and short description of well-functioning business models and solutions already available.

Command of Vessels in the Era of Digitalization

Recent discussions on digitalization, and autonomous ships provide a disruptive picture of how the maritime industry may be transformed in this process. The magnitude of this digitalization trend is very different from the one of implementing e-Navigation initiated by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) in 2006 to harmonize, integrate, exchange, present and analyze marine information on board and ashore by electronic means. A rapid speed of digitalization of ship operation is causing controversy. For example, the maritime industry has not yet come to a consensus about agreed definitions of “autonomous ship”, “unmanned ship” and a “remote-controlled vessel”. Some pioneering industry developers, invest in the digitalization of ship operation to make the maritime transport more reliable, safe and efficient. Whilst such technological developments promise safe and efficient business models to a greater extent, it has not been much discussed how people on board will be affected by digitalization with a particular attention to the notion of leadership. Command of vessels has been traditionally considered as a human domain. The ways in which leadership is displayed on board and how each task is dedicated to the members of a shipboard organization will be radically different in the era of digitalization. Based on the qualitative data obtained from semi-structured interviews, group interviews and participant observation with maritime experts in Norway, the paper discusses the impact of digitalization on organized work in ship operation, implications of digitalization for leadership, and leadership required in the era of digitalization. It concludes that human-automation coordination as well as human-human coordination are the key to support the future operation of ships.

Is the Sky the Limit?: Leadership and Socio-economic Development of Women in the Maritime Sector in the Eastern and Southern Africa

Women in leadership is high on the economic agenda of all international forums as it is deemed to be an effective tool in addressing a number of socio-economic issues, namely, poverty alleviation, social well-being and wealth creation. In the case of the maritime industry, positive contributions of women are increasingly being recognised. This paper draws a particular attention to socio-economic development of women’s leadership in the maritime sector. This study applies a case study method, investigating the socio-economic development in women’s leadership in the Eastern and Southern Africa. An adapted model from the economic theory of the Kuznets curve is used for designing a survey of women in leadership as well as analysing their individual experiences in climbing up to leadership positions and their views on leadership in the traditionally male-dominated maritime sector.

Female Captains and Their Leadership: Human Factors in the Shipping Industry

Seafaring has been traditionally seen as a male-dominated occupation where women’s participation is extremely low in many parts of the world. In particular, Captains on merchant ships are often found to be men who tend to project a certain authoritative figure in the context of a ship hierarchy. Nevertheless, the representation of women in seafaring jobs has been recently more accepted though still a few. This paper discusses how the notion of leadership on board a ship can be challenged by female Captains and how they have learned leadership and applied in ship operations. Gender issues are an important part of human factors, impacting on crew’s relationship and teamwork under the leadership of a Captain. In this research, seven female and three male Captains were individually interviewed. An inquiry to female Captains and leadership will provide a new source of data for re-thinking human factors in the shipping industry.