Shipping companies should account for their environmental impact as part of their balance sheets if sustainable shipping is to make progress, according to an industry veteran.

John Aitken, secretary general of the cross industry group, Shipping Emissions Abatement and Trading (SEAaT), said environmental costs have been "externalised and not accounted for.”

But they "cannot be externalised for long", he said.  Instead they "must be included on balance sheets before progress can be made for sustainable shipping."

“Although shipping is already trying to be more efficient in the way it moves cargo, shipping companies give no consideration as to how much their daily operations cost in terms of environmental damage and disruption,” he said.

Aitken was speaking at the SustainableShipping Forum in Singapore last week.

He said there was "no easy solution” to shipping's environmental impact and that a radical change in approach was needed.

He also noted that shipowners were "not doing particularly well" investing in more fuel efficient ships.

Aitken added that high bunker prices could eventually "save the day", with surging bunker costs putting a check on fuel consumption.

The sentiment had been expressed earlier at the conference by industry consultant Robin Meech, who said that high bunker prices would press players into strategies such as slow steaming and more efficient routing to cut fuel, as well as seek out new technology in an effort to become more fuel efficient.