More than 50,000,000 containers in circulation worldwide, 250 million being transported, compared with a capacity of nearly 14 million 20-feet containers from the existing fleet of specialized vessels alone.
But these containers, which have become the central element in transport, especially of processed and finished goods, in the world, also produce, according to assessments of their casualty, almost 6 billion dollars a year in damages to the global logistics sector. This is essentially due to poorly performed lashings, wrong arrangement of loads and weights inside them, induced damage to trucks and trains that transport them, as well as to port infrastructure and freight centers, insufficient documentation that causes their blockage especially in countries that apply the most stringent regulations for their control.
It is against this growing mountain of risks and therefore damages that Bureau Veritas is preparing to launch its challenge aimed at reducing the costs of claims, making available to the market a guarantee tool that allows to lower the risk, thanks to the safety criteria condensed in 34 points checklist , derived from the CTU Code and then in the Container Loading Assessment certificate issued by Bureau Veritas.
A certificate that is the result of physical verifications, but also of interface work and collaboration with container companies (including leasing companies). Theoretically, all containers should be checked, after the first 5 years from their production, at least every 30 for their safety conditions and in the countries subscribing to the Convention, the absence of the CSC certificate (Convention For Safe Container which certifies the requirements and safety conditions of the container) is cause for the container itself to be blocked and cannot be used or placed in freight centers.
"A process - D'Amato stresses - that could obtain a decisive boost if a form of collaboration with insurance companies actually materialized and therefore a benefit for the whole sector due to virtuous behavior in the use of containers. And considering the annual damage account, the hypothesis sounds realistic."