Stories from the waterfront

Homeward Bound. When ports hit home: a case study

The Beirut Explosion of 2020. Bad port planning led to tragic circumstances, with poorly stored and forgotten ammonium nitrate catching fire, causing an explosion so powerful that it now ranks among the most potent non-nuclear explosions ever recorded.  

The explosion devasted the port and nearby neighbourhood, killing over 200 people, injuring over 7,000 and leaving over 300,000 without homes.  

The blast did not just destroy infrastructure but shattered people’s lives.  

It exposed the human cost of neglecting safety, accountability, and correct port management. 

How things should be done: Today, smart port planning must reconnect ports with the city and communities that surround them. 

In Rotterdam, Europe’s largest port, the Merwe-Vierhavens area is being reimagined. This site was once home to a bustling fruit market, before years of decay and neglect left behind underused land and abandoned infrastructure.  

Now a different future is on the horizon. 

A modern mix of living, working culture and provisions can redefine this port, where testing circular economic models, climate-adaptive practices to heat homes, and good connections to the city can act as an example to other ports around the world 

While the Merwe-Vierhavens project offers inspiration, integrating port and city is not possible everywhere. Beyond fitting into their surroundings, ports also need to develop productive, innovative and competitive industrial sites that power the transition while limiting additional pressure on the natural environment. 

Stories from the waterfront

Reimagining trade: a case study

Navigating the ocean has long been our expertise, allowing trade from far off corners of the world to happen. The silk route was a vital network of trade routes that connected the East to the West, facilitating economic, political, and cultural exchanges from the 2^nd century BC.  

Nowadays, most ships carrying goods between Asia and Europe travel through the Suez Canal. Acting as a two-way highway for ships, the Suez Canal is a main artery in global supply chains.  

This is why it stung when the MSC Ever Given vessel ran aground in May 2021, bringing not just the ship but billions of euros in global trade to a grinding halt.  

Contrary to the immense amount of goods being shipped around the world, a system that is vulnerable to a plethora of issues such as climate shocks, geopolitics and pandemics, Austria is showing us how it should be done. As the hands down frontrunners of Europe in circularity, competing with other forward-thinking EU countries such as France and Germany, their government adopted a repair voucher scheme in 2022 to underpin its Environmental Support Act. 

Through monetary incentives to households, citizen behaviour changed for the better, using government funded repair cafes, 40% of the beneficiaries stated that they wouldn’t have chosen to repair without the scheme. This just shows that if there is enough political will, then we all benefit, and not just us, the planet too. 

Stories from the waterfront

All aboard for a safe and fair transition: a case study

In 2025, 19 seafarers aboard the aptly named Global Peace were stranded off the coast of the UAE after their shipowner disappeared. Some had been on board for up to 15 months. They went unpaid and eventually ran out of fuel and electricity, resorting to burning wood to cook what little food they had left.

And they were far from alone. 2025 was the worst year on record for seafarer abandonment, with 6,223 people abandoned across 410 ships and millions of dollars in wages left unpaid.

Organisations like The Mission to Seafarers step in with food, fuel, emergency funds and help getting crews home. But charities cannot solve the underlying problem. Preventing abandonment means making ship ownership more transparent, enforcing existing rules and holding shipowners accountable for the people who work for them.

SHIPPING: THE WINDS OF CHANGE (1800 – 2036) 

Permanent collection – Gallery of anthropological evolution 

Since the 16^th century, ships and ports have been used to connect the four corners of the earth. Nowadays, we continue to use ships to carry the modern world across the ocean. Food, fuel, medicine, clothes, phones, and much more have moved through turbulent waters to ports around the globe. 80% of all goods travel across the oceans, mostly unseen by the people it serves.  

Since the beginning, shipping has been designed to be more efficient, optimising routes, with bigger and "better” vessels and cheaper fuel. The ocean was treated like a motorway and an exhaust pipe, believed big enough to absorb the impact of global shipping.  

By the early 21^st century, the cracks from the damage started to show. Shipping emerged as a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions and to ocean pollution. Black carbon darkened and melted the Arctic ice. Underwater noise masked marine communication channels interfering with the ability of marine wildlife to communicate, and spills, discharges and emissions damaged marine ecosystems. The climate criseis heated the earth and summers became unbearable for both the people and the ecosystems. Coastal communities bore the brunt of global trade, feeling the strain ports were under. Geopolitical crises dominated the landscape: violations of human rights and environmental disasters made climate change work harder to achieve.  

The mid 2020s and 2030s brought about much-needed change. Feeling the heat, and the consequences it brought, governments, industries, and civil society began working together to impose regulations: carbon pricing, global fuel standards, wind-powered ships, ship speed reduction, better rights for workers.  

Trade did not stop. It changed. And a new era emerged: an era of One Planet Shipping, operating within and respecting the planet’s limits.  

Thanks to political will, routes grew cleaner and slower. Ports became hubs for circularity. Wind technology returned to the ocean. Humanity became focused on connectedness rather than competitiveness, on cooperation instead of trade wars. The ocean cooled down. Marine ecosystems rebalanced and started to sequent carbon. This inspired other sectors to follow suit and the planet started to cool down. 

Humanity learned to move the world and was forced to live with the way it moves.