YOU may see a headline with something like “Shipping fails yet again to decarbonise” and think “that figures”. But the latest report on shipping’s sluggish green transition is more interesting than most.

The Getting to Zero Coalition, a club of greener-minded companies, has produced a new way of ranking its members’ progress across different industry segments and milestones.

Results are, unsurprisingly, mixed at best. They look quite a lot like those of the wider industry, suggesting shipping’s climate leaders have much work to do.

Findings show the biggest gains in categories such as “creating enabling conditions”: setting green targets, reporting emissions and making plans.

Progress on the jobs that involve spending real money, including deploying zero-emission shipping and finding how to make it pay, is so far embryonic.

Yes, we’re all still waiting for the International Maritime Organization to save us.

Granted, only about half the coalition’s 200+ members wrote back, so its numbers aren’t perfectly representative.

But the granular data now on offer will bring real benefits, especially if more companies join in the scheme next year, and in the years after that. Problems are being found, but also practical solutions to those problems. The collaboration on display is a vast improvement from even a few years ago.

Having a good grasp of the situation will help companies plan for their fleet renewal. The better the plans, the better you’ll sleep at night while waiting for the IMO result.

After all, what you don’t measure, you can’t manage.

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