Maritime organisations form the backbone of global trade and logistics, and evolving regulatory frameworks demand more from them. Maritime ESG is increasing in importance, and regulators and lenders expect emissions and performance to improve, for cleaner, more transparent and equitable shipping. Asset-intensive and data-heavy, maritime operations struggle to produce clear ESG metrics.
More than half of executives (57%) cite data quality as the top challenge with ESG data for their company, and 88% report it as one of their top three challenges. Deloitte, 2024 Sustainability Action Report.
Continuously changing environmental legislation ranks as shipping's top ESG priority at 88.3%, while internal and external stakeholder engagement ranks lowest at 67.5%. SAFETY4SEA ESG Climate Survey (fieldwork Q1/Q2 2022, 1,183 maritime industry respondents).
LR Advisory has worked with clients from across the globe, covering the full maritime chain to tackle this challenge.
One consistent problem emerged. The tools used to understand ESG are built for general industry use and do not reflect the specific requirements of the maritime sector.
This disconnect means it is difficult to establish a clear view of ESG maturity across the maritime sector, which limits comparisons between maritime organisations, making it more difficult to prioritise action.
The Maritime ESG Maturity Index (MEMI) is LR Advisory’s response, closing that gap and establishing a framework that works for the maritime industry.
A tool built for maritime
Previous ESG maturity tools applied standardised questionnaires across industries with little or no customisation for maritime-specific risks or operations. MEMI is a proprietary approach built around maritime-specific ESG topics.
MAMI is informed by LR Advisory’s experience in delivering ESG strategies and sustainability reporting across the maritime sector, alongside ESG due diligence work for lenders. LR also has long experience developing industry frameworks such as the Digital Maturity Index. This combination of ESG delivery experience, maritime insight and prior framework development places LR Advisory in a strong position to develop a maritime-specific ESG maturity tool.
The tool gives maritime organisations a structured way to evaluate their ESG maturity across five pillars: governance and strategy, environment, social impact and human capital, risk, compliance and disclosure, and value chain.
MEMI produces a maturity score and places the organisation within one of four defined archetypes:
- Disclosure absent: no public ESG report
- Compliance-oriented companies: adequate governance and disclosure, but limited integration
- Structured progressors: strong governance and reporting with gaps in operational environmental depth and value chain management
- Integrated champions: full ESG integration across all five pillars measured
Each archetype reflects a different level of ESG integration and a pathway to improve. At earlier stages, activity is often fragmented and has limited structure. As maturity develops, ESG becomes more embedded in business processes, supported by clearer governance and more consistent reporting. At more advanced stages, ESG becomes integrated into decision making, with a stronger focus on performance and transparency.
The assessment gives organisations a structured benchmark against industry peers and a way to identify and more consistent ESG comparisons.
From assessment to action
MEMI is the starting point for a structured consultation. Once an organisation understands its maturity stage, LR Advisory uses that baseline to inform the scope and focus of subsequent work, whether that involves developing an ESG report, strengthening an existing reporting framework, preparing for third party assurance or supporting the development of a broader ESG strategy .
A structured materiality assessment evaluates ESG topics from two perspectives:
- The organisation’s impact on society and the environment
- Financial risks and opportunities those topics create for the business
This approach reflects increasing demands under frameworks such as the European Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and informs the overall ESG strategy, framework for KPIs and reporting structure that follow from the assessment.
The maritime industry already generates significant data for regulatory compliance, covering emissions, fuel consumption and safety performance. However, this data is often fragmented across systems and functions, and difficult to align with ESG reporting requirements.
LR Advisory’s approach connects that data to recognised frameworks, turning operational and compliance data into a foundation for targets and reporting. Rather than building an ESG data infrastructure from scratch, organisations can map to existing data against frameworks such as the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB), International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) and CSRD.
Evidence of improved ESG action can be used not just to secure better chartering terms through reduced Scope 3 emissions, but also to secure better borrowing under the Poseidon Principles. Under this scheme, lenders offer better terms to those with more advanced ESG profiles, or those that have a plan to improve their ESG profile.
ESG services
ESG services can then be applied based on the organisation’s priorities and stage of maturity, whether that’s ESG strategy and reporting, ESG assurance, greenhouse gas (GHG) reporting and verification, sustainable finance advisory, ESG digital enablement, sustainable procurement and supply chain, climate strategy and risk assessment, lifecycle assessments or carbon insetting and offsetting.
Services can be delivered individually or as part of a broader programme to improve overall MEMI scores. In this way, organisations can move from understanding their ESG position to addressing gaps, strengthening reporting frameworks and aligning existing data with ESG requirements, moving from knowing where they stand to demonstrating it.
As ESG scrutiny intensifies across maritime, the gap is growing between those who can demonstrate credible progress and those who cannot is widening. Those with a clear view of where they stand, and a plan to improve, will compete with greater confidence, have better access to capital, and on more favourable terms.
