HRAS: Poseidon Principles are Positive Industry Step

Human Rights at Sea (HRAS) positively welcomes the Poseidon Principles, a result of the the multi-stakeholder initiative of the Global Maritime Forum. Following the commitment of 55 industry leaders at our Annual Summit in Hong Kong to work together towards shipping’s decarbonization, the Poseidon Principles is the important next step.

The Poseidon Principles are the world’s first sector-specific, self-governing climate alignment agreement amongst financial institutions. They establish a global framework for assessing and disclosing the climate alignment of ship finance portfolios and are consistent with the policies and ambitions of the IMO, including its ambition for greenhouse gas emissions to peak as soon as possible and to reduce shipping’s total annual GHG emissions by at least 50 percent by 2050.

The four core Poseidon principles are assessment, accountability, enforcement and transparency.

Founding Signatories of the Principles include Citi, DNB, Societe Generale, ABN Amro, Amsterdam Trade Bank, Credit Agricole CIB, Danish Ship Finance, Danske Bank, DVB, ING and Nordea. Together they represent a bank loan portfolio to global shipping of approximately $100 billion – around 20 percent of the global ship finance portfolio. Additional banks are expected to join them in the near future.

The drafting of the Poseidon Principles was led under auspices of the Global Maritime Forum by a group of global shipping banks – Citi, Societe Generale, and DNB – together with leading industry players – A.P. Møller Mærsk, Cargill, Euronav, Lloyd’s Register and Watson Farley & Williams – with expert support provided by Rocky Mountain Institute and University College London Energy Institute.

Multistakeholder collaborative standard setting approaches represent a major step towards greater protection of the environment in which the shipping industry operates. The development of the Geneva Declaration on Human Rights at Sea is the equivalent development of such a document that separately aims to raise global awareness of the abuse of human rights at sea, and to mobilize a concerted international effort to put an end to it through a collaborative process of  clarification of existing human rights protection standards in the maritime space .

Against a background of an ever-increasing deterioration of the climate due to anthropogenic activity, the Poseidon Principles, the ship finance industry-led multi-stakeholder standard setting approach is a very positive contribution towards global climate change mitigation.