The LCL has joined The Green Shipping Project, a consortium funded by Canada’s Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.
“Who pays the piper-assessing the potential for pass-through of environmental charges within maritime shipping” is the research project Prof. Benny Mantin, LCL Director, and James Nolan,University of Saskatchewan, are working on for the Innovation Governance & Business Models project cluster.
What is the research about
The pricing of CO2 emissions would significantly affect the transportation sector. However, these price signals may become distorted in the maritime transportation sector because if carriers exert market power, they are likely to “pass through” a portion of the emission charge to cargo shippers. The problem of pass-through from the regulatory perspective is that in trying to control the (environmental) behavior of an industry, it may be that firm(s) find themselves in a market situation where they can simply avoid paying and instead pass the cost directly on to users.
More about the research project
About the Green Shipping Project
The UBC Centre for Transportation Studies together with 16 university partners and 16 non-academic industry and government partners lead an international maritime research network on governing environmental improvements in the maritime supply chain. The project is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and includes economists, business management scholars and political scientists.
While there is well-developed technical literature on ship design and the economics of efficient operation, sea transport is relatively under‐investigated in the business management, political economy and global governance literatures. There is consequently a major gap when it comes to understanding the implications of the accelerating “green shipping” trend, which calls for greater environmental accountability and reduction of the air, land and water impacts of the sector along the maritime supply chain.
The Green Shipping research network aims to address this knowledge gap. The overall goal is to advance knowledge and understanding towards the progressive governance of sustainable maritime transport.