MSC collaborates with GSBN to trial integrated safe transportation certification verification process
Global Shipping Business Network (GSBN), a neutral, not-for-profit consortium enabling paperless, announces its collaboration with MSC Mediterranean Shipping Company to further enhance safety in transporting lithium battery shipments. The collaboration was jointly unveiled by GSBN and MSC during the SMDG’s 78th CDC and Plenary Meeting in Antwerp, Belgium, according to the company's release.
The increasing presence of lithium-ion batteries carried on container ships amid rising misdeclarations has become a major concern for the shipping industry given the risk of fire. In its collaboration, MSC integrated its lithium battery shipment booking process with GSBN, which has extensive access to China’s top testing laboratories and certification providers, including SICIT and Pony Testing.
This means following testing, immutable safe transportation certificates can be shared directly by the laboratories over GSBN’s blockchain network and are seamlessly accessed during booking by MSC. This improves the overall customer experience while replacing an often paper-based process in which such certificates are hard to verify and carried risks such as loss, mislabelling as well as fraud. The intention is to extend the collaboration to a wider group of certificates as well as expanding the network of laboratories to increase the coverage for carriers.
The Global Shipping Business Network (GSBN) is a neutral, not-for-profit consortium whose mission is to enable paperless, accessible and sustainable growth in global trade with its data infrastructure and ecosystem of partners. GSBN facilitates trusted collaboration between participants across the shipping industry to enable greater efficiencies, paperless trade as well as supporting the shipping industry’s decarbonisation transition. GSBN’s ecosystem includes shipping lines, terminals, banks, application developers and other consortia.
MSC Mediterranean Shipping Company, headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, is a global leader in transportation and logistics, privately owned and founded in 1970 by Gianluigi Aponte. As one of the world’s leading container shipping lines, MSC has 675 offices across 155 countries worldwide, with the MSC Group employing almost 200,000 people. MSC’s shipping line sails on more than 300 trade routes, calling at 520 ports, and is targeting net zero decarbonization by 2050.
