Now there’s proof of what I predicted here on the blog in 2014 and 2015.
Researchers at Chalmers have found that shipping companies are cheating on Northern Europe's sulphur emissions regulations.
In extensive remote measurements made by the researchers with their own method, it appears that every tenth ship is in violation of Northern Europe's sulphur emission regulations.
"Some shipping companies seem to have put it in system to cheat," says Johan Mellqvist, Assistant Professor at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg.
"We can see clear differences in compliance depending on who owns the vessels.”

Chalmers researchers have developed their own monitoring system. It is based on air measurements with a sniffer, which creates a physical and chemical analysis of the air. The sniffer is then supplemented with other technologies, such as optical remote sensing and automatic ship identification systems.

The air measurements are made both at fixed stations at the port of Gothenburg and the bridges across the Sound and the Great Belt, as well as from an airplane that moves around Denmark and across the English Channel.

The system developed by the group at Chalmers presents good results. The system has actually been put to use for sulphur emission monitoring in a number of countries.
During its test period, the researchers have found that there is a lot of cheating in the northern European so-called "sulphur emission control area" (Seca). What is remarkable is that it is not about random variations. The violations follow clear patterns.
"We can see that rarely incoming ships, including cruise ships, violate the rules more often. Also, it is more common for ships to release too much sulphur on their way out of the area than on their way in, as they risk an inspection on board",  says Johan Mellqvist.

In the eastern part of the English Channel, near Seca's border, 15 percent of the ships violate the rules. Around Denmark that number is 10 percent and at the fixed stations it is 2-5 percent.

Nevertheless, the shipping companies can save a lot of money when breaking the rules, according to Professor Johan Mellqvist. He believes, among other things, that the more expensive low sulphur fuel can provide additional costs of 1 million SEK for just a return trip between England and Saint Petersburg.

For my part, I am behind the new monitoring system to 100 percent. What the researchers have now confirmed, I already predicted in 2014.

Here is a selection of those blog posts:

2014-10-03
The new directive regarding sulphur regulation will be in force from January 1st of 2015. This means that the sulphur content of the flue gas from all the ships in Northern Europe must reduce their emissions from the current permissible level of 1.0 percent to 0.1 percent.
But since there will be no follow-ups, I am certain many shipping companies will ignore the directive and still charge higher fees even though they have not made the investments in environment as required by the directive. 
Because the big question is: How will this new directive regarding sulphur regulation be regulated and by whom?
As of today, there is no one. 

2014-10-10
I am convinced very few of the companies will carry these environmental investments through, which is a necessity for this to become a reality. And why won’t they do it? Well, there are no helpful tools and no authority has been appointed responsible for ensuring that the new rules are followed.  
For NTEX, the new directive will lead to distinctively higher costs for freight across the North Sea, and above all, the Baltic Sea. We are talking about several millions Swedish crowns which we will have to invest in our transportation fleet. In the end this affects the customers.
 

The directors should not be certain of their positions until their pension

 

Public limited companies and boards need more professional business representatives.
And by this, I primarily mean within the board work.
Today, these corporate boards consist solely of confidence-elected municipal politicians, who very rarely have any experience of running a commercial company and everything that that entails.

Gothenburg is without comparison the one municipality in Sweden which has the most municipal companies. On the municipality's website there is an organisational list with over 40 different limited companies. The corresponding number in Stockholm is 20.

In these boards, there are no professional members from the business sector, except in exceptional cases when the municipal politician is also a trader. However, it is in the capacity of an elected official they have ended up in a municipal company board.

It is also these boards that, together with the Bureau of the Municipal Board, appoint and dismiss the highest officials, such as the CEOs of the municipal companies.

When such a board appoints a CEO with long experience from the business sector, it means that they are hiring a person who has much more experience from running companies than themselves.

Some questions that arise at this point are: How can this inexperienced company board make demands on its CEO and how should they know when it is time to dismiss the director in question?

The answer is that they can and do not know when it’s time. If you succeed in becoming a CEO of a municipal company, you will remain there until your pension. Provided that you are in line with the law and you yourself do not want to move on from the position, of course.

I think this is wrong. I believe that all corporate executives, with the directors at the forefront, should be challenged on a regular basis.

Therefore, it is extremely important that more professional business representatives are present in the municipalities' boards.

Currently, several municipal companies are examples of sheltered workshops, which occasionally are saved by municipal tax assets. Just look at Got Event AB, who runs Ullevi and Scandinavium. Last year, the company was responsible for the European Championship in equestrian sport, which was planned to give a plus to the cashier but instead became a financial failure. The bill for the city of Gothenburg and its taxpayers was at least 50 million SEK. Furthermore, Got Event loses around 150 to 200 MSEK each year, but receives group contributions from Göteborg Energi, among other companies, in order to continue its business.