Alternative fuels change hazard profiles and routines so significantly that safety culture must also be adapted. With conventional fuels, the industry has developed a safety culture over decades that is based on experience and well-practised routines. Every experienced engineer knows how HFO behaves, which fire scenarios are realistic and which precautions apply for which tasks. These deeply anchored patterns no longer work when the fuel behaves fundamentally differently.
Methanol burns with an invisible flame. Ammonia is lethal when inhaled. Hydrogen has an ignition limit of 4% in air and detonates under confinement. None of these hazards can be adequately addressed by the existing safety culture, because that culture was built on experiential knowledge with conventional fuels.
The critical point: safety culture is not what is written in the procedures. It is what the crew actually does when nobody is watching. When an engineer working on the methanol fuel system does not don the prescribed PPE because he never had to with HFO, that is a culture problem, not a knowledge problem. The culture must adapt so that new behaviours become routine.
Deviations are reported early and permit-to-work procedures are not shortened under time pressure. A resilient safety culture is characterised by several attributes: first, psychological safety -- the crew reports errors, near-misses and uncertainties without fear of consequences. Second, consistent adherence to procedures -- even when time pressure is high, no permit-to-work is abbreviated and no safety check is skipped.
Third, active questioning -- when a crew member observes something unusual, it is raised, not ignored. Fourth, leadership by example -- the master and the Chief Engineer demonstrate through their own behaviour that safety is non-negotiable. When the Chief Engineer personally wears PPE and follows procedures, the crew does likewise.
These attributes are not new. They apply to any safety culture in any industry. But with alternative fuels, the starting position is different: the routines that normally sustain such a culture do not yet exist. They must be actively built, which requires more leadership effort, more communication and more patience than maintaining an existing culture.
Good technology reduces risks but does not replace crew behaviour. Modern fuel supply systems for alternative fuels are equipped with multiple safety systems: gas detectors, automatic shut-off valves, inerting systems, ventilation monitoring. These systems are designed to intervene automatically when operation deviates from normal. But they have limits.
A gas detector can report a leak, but it cannot prevent a crew member from entering a contaminated area without breathing apparatus. An automatic shutdown can stop fuel flow, but it cannot make the correct follow-up decision: is it safe to enter the space? Must evacuation occur? Which extinguishing measure is appropriate?
The interaction between technology and behaviour is particularly evident with alarms. A well-trained team responds to a gas alarm with a clear sequence: avoid the area, check ventilation, read detection values, report to the bridge, initiate action. A poorly trained team stands before the alarm wondering what it means. The risk lies in that delay.
ISM requirements demand that procedures for emergency situations are documented and trained. With alternative fuels, however, these procedures must go beyond generic ISM emergency plans. They must be fuel-specific, location-specific (engine room vs. bunker deck vs. ventilation area) and scenario-specific (small leak vs. large leak vs. fire).
Introduce new fuels not only technically but with cultural accompaniment. Cultural accompaniment begins even before the vessel enters service. When the crew is first confronted with a new fuel, the leadership -- from the DPA through the superintendent to the master -- must send a clear message: we take the new risks seriously, and we invest in your competence.
Concrete measures: first, open communication about the risks. No embellishing, no downplaying. The crew must know what ammonia or methanol can do in an emergency. Only those who understand the risk can respect it. Second, allow time for acclimatisation. The first months with a new fuel should not be conducted under maximum operational pressure. Third, establish a feedback culture. The crew must be encouraged to report observations and uncertainties without this being perceived as weakness.
Fourth, and this is the most sustainable lever: integrate safety culture into performance evaluation. When reporting near-misses is positively valued and adherence to safety procedures is part of the assessment, the culture takes root faster than through any presentation.
The ISM Code requires a Safety Management System (SMS) that documents safety policies, procedures, responsibilities and emergency plans. But compliance with the ISM Code and a good safety culture are not the same thing. There are companies that pass every ISM audit yet have a weak safety culture because the SMS is a paper tiger.
The gap between ISM compliance and genuine safety culture becomes particularly evident with alternative fuels. A generic SMS written for HFO operation, superficially supplemented with a chapter on alternative fuels, formally meets the requirements. But if the procedures do not address the specific risks of the fuel actually in use, if emergency plans are not trained in a fuel-specific manner, and if the crew has not understood the procedures, the SMS remains ineffective.
A genuine safety culture for alternative fuels requires: fuel-specific risk assessments for all relevant work areas, regularly reviewed and updated procedures, a documented feedback loop from onboard practice back into the SMS, and a leadership culture that treats safety as a non-negotiable value.
Cultural change on board does not happen through an instruction from ashore. It happens through consistent modelling and repeated practice. An example: an operator introduces methanol as fuel. In the first weeks, the superintendent observes that some crew members are working in the fuel supply system area without the prescribed gas measurement checks -- as they were accustomed to with HFO.
The wrong response would be punishment. The right response: an open conversation about why the behaviour is dangerous with methanol (invisible vapours, toxicity by inhalation), followed by a practical drill demonstrating how quickly methanol concentrations in a poorly ventilated space can reach dangerous levels. When the crew understands and feels the risk, behaviour changes more sustainably than through any procedure document.
Assessing safety culture is more difficult than assessing technical compliance, but not impossible. Three indicators are meaningful: first, the reporting rate for near-misses and deviations -- a high reporting rate is a positive sign, a low rate may indicate a silence culture. Second, the results of crew interviews during internal audits -- does the crew understand the procedures, or have they merely read them? Third, the quality of drill reports -- are weaknesses documented and improvement measures defined, or are all drills rated as faultless?
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