Ethics in maritime: the accelerator, not the brake
BMT's Sustainability Director, Del Redvers, spoke to us about his view on ethics ahead of his participation at the 2026 RINA/IMarEST Ethics Symposium
“Ethics begins where compliance ends. It is not ethical to be legally compliant, it is just a necessity.”
That’s the view of Del Redvers, BMT's Sustainability Director, speaking ahead of his presentation at the recent RINA/IMarEST Ethics Symposium.
“Equally, it is a hygiene factor to satisfy your customer’s demands,” says Redvers. “Action to improve environmental or social outcomes for that reason may be good, but it is not ethically driven.”
Redvers explains that the industry finds itself at the intersection of warming oceans, extreme weather, marine biodiversity collapse and so many other interconnected challenges. “And from fishing to energy - let alone global trade - everyone is relying on our services, capability and innovation. The ethical question at the heart of it is: 'What do we want our role in all that to be?'”
“If we are driven by customer demand and regulations, we can end up by default being the slowest part of the system - or in other words, the brake on progress: only acting when others insist. But I argue that our ethical duty is to be the accelerator - not the brake - and that means going beyond compliance and genuinely pushing customers to achieve better outcomes, faster than the market might otherwise move.”
Expanding on what's meant by 'better outcomes', Redvers says that this is an ethical choice. Every year, the possibilities afforded by imagination and design pushes boundaries further, and, thanks to AI, at previously unimaginable pace.
“But what do we optimise with that advancement? Bigger, faster, cheaper or cleaner, nature positive and more socially just outcomes? Ideally, of course, the answer is all of that, but there are always trade-offs. Ethics in practice is the application of purpose and values in finding the balance in those trade-offs. We often hear ideas of how to cut the cost of design, build or operation of some asset, but how often do we see those savings delivering more equitable outcomes for seafarers for example?”
An important current challenge is how to cut through the rhetoric and make change real. Redvers says that from the UK to Australia, new corporate reporting standards are putting even greater pressure on the assurance of data.
“Proof over promise. What data do you have? Is it independently assured and what does it really say? Claims of being the cleanest or greenest won’t count for much without proof and there is a cost associated with that.”
Resilience is a big theme. “Everyone agrees that our food, our energy supply and our trade routes need to be resilient, wherever you sit in the supply chain,” he says. “Alternative fuels reduce our dependence on hydrocarbons, increasing resilience and delivering better environmental outcomes. But in finding this universally acceptable language, we can lose sight of the ethical imperative which is not just to insulate ourselves from risk, but to help shape a fundamentally better world.”
In terms of the future, Redvers says that he wants everyone involved in the industry to have sustainability baked into their world view. “Not something that has to be argued for but something we all understand is inherent to the quality of human life on Earth.”
“Oceans are so special in our psychology and in the regulation of the Earth’s systems that we can’t wait for someone to get to university before they understand,” he says. “Initiatives like the BMT Next Wave Fund - delivered in partnership with Sea-Changers to support young people with limited access to the coast - or our work with schools, aren’t just about inspiring people to want a future in this industry, but more fundamentally about making a deep association that sustainability has to be part of our understanding of the ocean from day one.”
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Image: Containership at sea. Credit: Shutterstock
