Interview: Helen Barden, Director of External Affairs at NorthStandard

 

As one of a small group of lawyers with in-depth decarbonization expertise, Barden has become a "go-to" person when it comes to the fast-changing world of maritime climate rules and regulations.

Welcome, Helen! Tell us about yourself – your background and education.

I grew up in Northumberland, in the North East of England, surrounded by countryside. I loved days at the beaches along the stunning Northumberland coast and family holidays to Cornwall in the South West, so I'm now very happy to live right next to the beach here in the North East with my husband and children!

As for my education, I studied Law with French at Leicester University, which also included a year in Lyon, France studying French law at Université Jean Moulin Lyon 3 – a fantastic year in a beautiful city! I completed my legal training contract at Eversheds LLP (now Eversheds Sutherland) and qualified into the construction and engineering team where I stayed for a further three years.

How did you find your way to North-Standard? Tell us about your career there.

Having gone straight through school to university and then right into the workplace, I had never properly scratched my travel itch. So I left Eversheds to take a year off travelling. However, before I left I spoke to some lovely people at NorthStandard (then North of England P&I), who encouraged me to have an interview. I was delighted that they offered me a job and agreed I could start a year later, so I got my year travelling in Southeast Asia and South and Central America and had a great job in the FD&D (Freight, Demurrage and Defense) team to come back to.

I spent over 11 years in the FD&D team working predominately with the Northern European, U.K. and American membership, supporting them with their contractual disputes and enquiries and providing expert advice.

I also became the FD&D lead on the IMO's global sulphur cap regulation, and this developed into a wider interest in shipping's upcoming environmental regulation. A colleague and I set up the Club's decarbonization expertise team, and I've been supporting Members in this regard for the last six years.

When the North of England P&I Club merged with Standard Club in 2023 and NorthStandard was born, a new External Affairs team was created, headed up by Mike Salthouse. We believe a marine insurer of our size can be a strong advocate for our Members and the industry. It was – and still is – clear from the feedback of Members that the three big issues affecting them are sanctions/geopolitics, the need to decarbonize and the impact of new technology/digitalization.

I moved to the External Affairs team to drive the policy work and industry engagement on decarbonization and provide support in sanctions and new technology.

What is your role as Director of External Affairs?

My role is to build collaborative relationships and engage directly with policymakers. North-Standard is headquartered in the U.K., so our primary regulator is the U.K. government. As such, the majority of our policy engagement is through the government and the U.K. delegation to the IMO.

It's also important for us to engage widely with the industry to support policy development and the transition to net zero. So I work with a broad range of organizations – the International Chamber of Shipping, the U.K. Chamber of Shipping, BIMCO, the Global Maritime Forum, Blue Visby, to name a few – on various initiatives and sit on a number of panels and committees.

NorthStandard recently joined the Nuclear Energy Maritime Organization (NEMO), and I'm also engaged with that as a member.

Wow, you're busy! You're also much in demand as a speaker on the subject of decarbonizing maritime. How did that come about?

I've always been very passionate about sustainability and looking after the environment and so took a keen interest in the development of environmental regulations for shipping. As a lead within the Club during the run-up to the introduction of the sulphur cap regulation, I became one of the go-to people in the Club on decarbonization legislation and regulation and its commercial implications.

I would say there are still only a relatively small number of lawyers with in-depth maritime decarbonization expertise, and that's given me a great opportunity to speak at a number of events on the subject.

Tell us about the recently released paper, "Advanced Maritime Nuclear: A unique opportunity for the U.K.," issued by NorthStandard in partnership with CORE Power and Lloyd's Register. Is nuclear the solution?

Replacing traditional bunker fuel with a low or zero carbon alternative is challenging for many reasons. While the calorific content of biofuels is lower, it's not too dissimilar from traditional fuel oil. However, production, supply and use challenges suggest biofuel can only really be a short-term and limited solution.

Other alternative fuels such as ammonia, methanol and hydrogen present challenges with respect to their safety and use as well as their production and supply. They also have a much lower calorific content. Producing these fuels is incredibly energy-intensive, and to do so in a "green" way will require huge amounts of renewable energy, for which other sectors will be competing.

Therefore, we need to look at other solutions, and the technological development of Advanced Small Modular Reactors (A-SMRs) for maritime assets is moving at quite a speed now, albeit the regulation has some way to go. A number of our Members have said they see nuclear as being a viable solution if the regulatory and insurance elements can be addressed.

For this to happen we need engagement from governments to advance the regulatory landscape to allow nuclear on commercial maritime assets. Commercial insurability is vital, and without a global liability framework for nuclear power the cost of insuring such ships could be prohibitively high.

So we collaborated with two other British businesses, CORE POWER and Lloyd's Register, to describe the opportunity that nuclear-powered shipping presents for the U.K. The resulting paper makes the case for the U.K. government to support the deployment of A-SMRs and address the regulatory, economic and public perception barriers.

A copy of the paper can be downloaded from our website here: Civil Nuclear Report - Advanced Maritime Nuclear | NorthStandard | Marine Insurance

Wind propulsion on ships is also gaining a lot of momentum lately as a way of decarbonizing by saving fuel. What are its pros and cons?

Wind-assisted propulsion systems (WAPS) have indeed been more in the spotlight in the quest to reduce emissions from existing ships as well as for newbuilds. Together with a colleague and Gavin Allwright of the International Wind Ship Association, I gave a webinar to members recently on this subject. The webinar is publicly available and can be watched here: FuelEU Maritime - Charting a course with wind | NorthStandard | Marine Insurance.

A key pro is the ability to reduce fuel consumption and so reduce emissions. This can also have the knock-on effect of reducing exposure to regulatory costs. At present, there's no standard way of calculating the emission savings of these technologies, and so third-party verifiers can be useful here.

How do you see the path to net zero unfolding? What's the biggest challenge to getting there?

The scale and speed at which the industry needs to reach net zero is the biggest challenge. The progress of the regulations required, such as global liability regimes, to support the transition is behind the speed at which the fuels and technologies are developing.

Governments need to act with urgency to ensure the work at the IMO is progressed as quickly as possible and to ensure that the production, supply and infrastructure is advanced. The fuel infrastructure is a long way from where it will need to be. It doesn't seem like there will be sufficient renewable energy to produce the quantities of e-fuels required for shipping.

Governments should also advance the policy and regulatory work to allow safe nuclear technologies on commercial vessels.

What do you enjoy most about your job?

The people I work with, not just at NorthStandard and our Members, but also generally within the industry. I'm very lucky in my role that I get to have lots of conversations with lots of different people, and I love learning from others in this way as well as sharing knowledge I have to help support them.

How do you unwind? What do you like to do in your spare time?

I have two fabulous children, whom I love spending time with and who keep me very busy. I rarely have much time to unwind, but when I do I love sea swimming with friends (in the North Sea, whatever the weather), beach walks with our dog, cups of tea with friends, dancing and going to music gigs with my husband – this weekend we are off to see The Lathums!

Splendid! Any final words for our readers?

Yes. I want to point out that sustainability is more than just decarbonization. For our world and industry to thrive, we also have to look at other aspects of sustainability. And because the IMO International Day for Women in Maritime is coming up, I would like to highlight the critical need to work harder to advance gender equality.

The statistic from the World Economic Forum that, at the current rate of progress, it will take until 2158 to reach full gender parity – still about five generations away – is extremely depressing. However, we can speed this up if we all take action, and there are things everyone can do. Simple things like discussing with your leadership team if you think a work policy negatively impacts women over men, or if a policy could be put in place to help support women.

While unpaid carers aren't always women, a disproportionately high number are women. At NorthStandard, we have a carer's network to help support unpaid carers (of which I am one of with a mother who has Alzheimer's) and we also have a paid carer's leave policy, whereas the statutory requirement in the U.K. is for a period of unpaid leave.

These networks and policies are just some examples of ways to support women and advance gender equality. And while we're on the subject and since the inspiring Elpi Petraki is featured on your cover, I do want to say that WISTA is a great organization for championing gender equality and in 2024 NorthStandard supported WISTA U.K. to open a North East Chapter. 

Jack O'Connell is Senior Editor of The Maritime Executive.