NYK participated in the "High-Level Meeting on Ocean: Global Shipping in the Midst of a Just Energy Transition" held in Oslo, Norway, on June 5. From Japan, NYK was the only private company or shipping company to participate in the meeting.

The meeting, co-hosted by the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC)* and the Government of Norway, is an international conference attended by ministers of various countries, as well as leaders and experts from the shipping industry. The meeting was held to share important issues among leading experts in the global shipping industry and to discuss effective action guidelines and measures to solve these issues. Sixty-five representatives from international organizations, universities, shipping companies, marine equipment manufacturers, financial institutions, classification societies, government agencies of various countries, etc. attended the meeting, namely Sanda Ojiambo, UNGC Assistant Secretary-General and CEO; Bjørnar Skjæran, Minister for Fisheries and Oceans, Government of Norway; and Kitack Lim of the International Maritime Organization (IMO).

At the meeting, the participants discussed responses to important issues such as decarbonization in the shipping industry and a "Just Transition"** associated with decarbonization measures. From NYK, Executive Officer Masahiro Takahashi spoke on the following points.

NYK will continue to lead discussions to solve key challenges facing the shipping industry, such as decarbonization and “Just transition.”

On March 10, 2023, the NYK Group released its medium-term management plan “Sail Green, Drive Transformations 2026 — A Passion for Planetary Wellbeing. ” The NYK Group is promoting growth strategies with ESG at the core, based on the Group’s basic philosophy of “Bringing value to life” and a new corporate vision for 2030, which reads, “we go beyond the scope of a comprehensive global logistics enterprise to co-create value required for the future by advancing our core business and growing new ones.”

Meeting agenda

Points confirmed at the meeting

* UN Global Compact
The United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) is the world's largest sustainability initiative for the United Nations and the private sector (companies and organizations) to join hands to build a healthy global society. The Compact advocates 10 principles for protecting human rights, eliminating injustice, responding to the environment, and preventing corruption. NYK expressed its support in 2006 and is promoting voluntary efforts to act as a good member of society and achieve sustainable growth. In June 2022, NYK became the first company in Japan to endorse the UNGC's Sustainable Ocean Principles.

** Just Transition is a concept that aims to promote sustainable energy and industrial transformation while respecting the interests and rights of workers and communities. Just Transition specifically considers the following factors:

*** The 1.5°C target is to limit the global average temperature at the end of the 21st century to about 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. In the Paris Agreement formulated in 2015, the goal was positioned as an effort target to "limit the temperature rise to well below 2 °C and strive to approach 1.5°C." At the 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 2021, countries and regions around the world agreed to "pursue efforts to limit the global temperature rise to 1.5°C," and the 1.5°C target became the de facto target of the UNFCCC.