by Lloyd's List

11 June 2025 (Lloyd's List) - SHIPPING executives increasingly see political instability as the top risk to the industry, while confidence in successfully addressing it has decreased, according to a new survey conducted by the International Chamber of Shipping.

Cyber security threats, increasing administrative burdens on companies, trade barriers and financial instability were among other top concerns flagged up by survey respondents across the world.

The ICS’s fourth annual Maritime Barometer Report, the chamber’s latest attempt to assess industry sentiment towards the most important current issues affecting shipping, was circulated on Wednesday as industry leaders gathered in Athens for the Shaping the Future of Shipping Summit.

In his foreword to the report, ICS chairman Emanuele Grimaldi observed that it was a second year in succession that political instability occupied the top spot among member concerns.

“What is new this year is the all-time low in industry confidence to handle the risk that this poses to individual companies and our sector as a whole,” he said.

Over the four years since the annual surveys were introduced, there had been “a clear decline in maritime leaders’ confidence in their ability to steer issues related to geopolitical and regulatory challenges”, the report stated.

Furthermore, the instability was stoking concerns over a global recession that made business leaders in general more circumspect.

The findings fell “neatly in parallel” with current sentiment in the industry towards future fuels.

More maritime leaders were yearning for the “known and predictable” amid rising geopolitical volatility and uncertainty.

“When political volatility looms large, leaders become more risk averse,” said Grimaldi. “There is a desire to turn to known, trusted and more predictable ways of operating.”

Grimaldi saw this reflected in a shift in sentiment towards liquefied natural gas as the most viable fuel option for the next decade.

The survey results showed maritime leaders more bullish towards tried and tested fuel options and “shying away from their confidence in all near-zero and zero alternative fuels and technologies over the next decade”, said the report.

Instead, LNG, heavy fuel oil with abatement technologies and biofuels were clear frontrunners in the ICS findings — with a majority of 55% of respondents backing LNG.

Despite this, Grimaldi voiced a degree of hope that outcomes at the International Maritime Organization, both from the recent MEPC83 and the upcoming MEPC extraordinary session, “may help catalyse the private and public sector investments needed” to unlock near-zero and zero emissions solutions.

“We must remain on course if we are to reach our 2050 target and keep the big picture in mind at all times,” he urged.

Geopolitics also underpinned some of the growing threat faced on the cyber security front that ranked as the second-most important risk in the eyes of respondents, behind political instability.

Although it trended higher as a risk than ever before, executives appeared slightly more confident about handling the risk, perhaps as a result of greater trust in cybersecurity resources, training or the advances in AI.

The report’s authors, however, highlighted other studies that raised questions over whether any uptick in confidence is justified, or misplaced.

One told Lloyd’s List: “The sophistication of cyber attacks seems to be becoming more of a concern and we need to take cyber more seriously as an issue.”

An increasing administrative burden on the industry was rated the third-highest risk factor by respondents — its highest place since the surveys began. Confidence about being able to handle this particular risk, though, has dipped.

The survey ruminated that this could be explained by so many different regulations coming into force recently, such as the EU emissions trading scheme, the Fuel EU Maritime regulation, IMO regulations such as the carbon intensity indicator — a case of “rubber meeting the road”, as one ICS insider put it.

Further legislative developments in 2025 “join an already long list”, consisting mainly of environmental regulations but also existing financial and ESG reporting requirements.

While the survey closed in March, ahead of the wave of tariffs announced by the US in April, trade barriers were ranked as the fourth-biggest risk by shipping executives.

More than 130 C-suite executives participated in the survey, with the majority of replies coming from close to 100 shipowners and shipmanagers.

Although geopolitical uncertainty dominated the risk outlook, the report cautioned against seeing only a gloomy picture.

“There have been many positive developments, including maritime leaders’ growing confidence in their ability to handle supply chain instability,” it concluded.

“During and following the [Covid] pandemic, shipping has made major inroads in holistic thinking and forged greater collaboration with governments and key stakeholders to ensure the global supply chain is more resilient.

“This must continue to keep pace with rapid changes, including decarbonisation, in the industry.”

Although the survey was global in scope, a special section was devoted to the UK as the source of the largest number of participants from a single country.

Responses from the UK identified cyber attacks as the top risk, followed by malicious physical attacks, barriers to trade and the increased administrative burden on shipping, which all scored equally.

Political instability dropped out of the frame of the top risks altogether, after being last year’s top risk in the views of UK respondents.

The report suggested the shift was “likely linked to the new Labour government firmly in place, providing greater certainty”.