NMU - contributions at the Coastlink Conference
Written by Gordon Wilmsmeier
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Wednesday, 10 September 2008
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On September 3-4, 2008 the Coastlink Conference - "The Scandinavian Inititiative" was held at Malmsten Hall of Gothenburg University. This event was led by Coastlink Network, an association of companies committed to expanding the role shortsea shipping plays in transporting containers around Europe. Over 100 participants from 13 countries followed Gavin W. Roser's invitation. In the centre of the conference five workshops were held to define current and future challenges.
Two of the workshops were led by NMU partners.
- Arne Jensen, Gothenburg University, chaired the Workshop - What is industry, ports and shipping, doing to prepare their executives for managing change in 2020?
The workshop found that some actors tried to identify various drivers of change, for example in connection with external strategic scanning. However, the impression was almost nothing is done to prepare their executives for future change management by offering them education and competence development.
- Thomas Pawlik, University of Applied Sciences Kiel, chaired the Workshop - European bottlenecks - how we reduce or eliminate them?
The discussions in the workshop showed that bottlenecks are perceived very differently by each sector. Participants are looking for cooperation with competitors to solve challenges like rising energy costs or to offer higher levels of connectivity. This mix between cooperation and competition, also known as coopetition was seen as one possibility to solve certain bottlenecks. From the industry's perspective laws and regulation are source of a number of bottlenecks and these should be addressed urgently.
The other three workshops were:
- Feeder networks in Northern Europe - are they fit for purpose and can we make them more cost effective? chaired by Erik E. Petersen, Unifeeder AS
- Are shippers driving the choice of transport modes? Is cost the main driver? Are shippers serious about reducing the carbon footprint? The roles of dry ports in the supply chain? Chaired by Filip Beckers, Masterfoods and European Shipper Council
- The impact of fuel costs on the supply chain and shipping in European waters was chaired by Ian Adam, IBIA