Striking the balance between profits and prosperity in International Shipping News 12/05/2026 For decades, the shipping industry operated as an invisible, ultra-efficient heartbeat of a globalising world, existing on a diet of technical optimisation and predictable, if not always smooth, international relations. But today, that veneer of technical stability is being stripped away. The “golden age” of non-political trade is facing a reckoning, caught between the moral need to decarbonise and a geopolitical landscape that is described by DNV’s director of maritime markets and trade, Jakub Walenkiewicz, as a “law of the jungle”. In conversation with NYK Group Europe’s managing executive officer and vice chairman of the International Chamber of Shipping, Carl-Johan Hagman, Walenkiewicz discussed the friction between shipping’s historical efficiency and the “turbulent” reality of modern supply chains. In an episode of DNV’s Market Views, Walenkiewicz noted that while the world requires low-emission transportation, the current climate of disrupted supply chains is forcing the industry into shorter-term inefficiencies, characterised by longer routes and more fuel burned. Despite this Hagman defended the industry’s track record, arguing that shipping remains “hyper-efficient”, carrying between 80 and 90% of global trade while accounting for only about two and a half percent of CO2 emissions. For Hagman, the industry’s progress is a “phenomenal job” of enabling global prosperity. He pointed out that every year, technical and operational improvements yield another 10% in efficiency without even changing fuel types. On a tonne-mile basis, he estimated that the industry has achieved an “unprecedented” 50% reduction in emissions over the last decade or so. Shipping “grossly underpriced” However, this efficiency has come at a cost to the industry’s own bottom line. In the conversation, Hagman argued that transportation is currently “grossly underpriced for the value it provides and for the emissions it produces”, noting that much of the efficiency gains from scaling up vessels have been “given back to the global trading system” in the form of stagnant freight rates. This set the stage for a moral and regulatory dilemma: the industry has the technology to do better, but it lacks the unified global framework to implement it fairly. Turning to the International Maritime Organisation, Hagman expressed deep concern over the potential erosion of the UN body’s authority, which he views as the “biggest challenge” the industry faces. He cited the 17th-century principles of Hugo de Groot’s Mare Liberum—the idea that the sea belongs to no one and is for the good of all—as the bedrock of the IMO’s success. Until very recently, the IMO operated on consensus, a “model for the rest of the world” where technical experts from across the political spectrum could solve global problems without the friction of national agendas. But that era of “de-politicised” co-operation appears to be ending. Hagman pointed to last year’s MEPC 83 meeting as a “watershed moment” where the predictability that shipowners rely on began to crumble. This is particularly frustrating for an industry that, in a historic move, essentially asked to be regulated. Hagman noted that as vice chairman of the ICS, he saw nearly 100% of the world’s shipowners’ associations voluntarily request a global tax on their operations to fund decarbonisation. This was a first for any international industry, yet t