Nanna Thit

Doing what’s right: How social and cultural practices are influencing innovation - and change processes in connection with the green transition in shipping

Wwat is the problem?
The aim of the project is: 1. Via organizational anthropological methods to investigate how processes of change towards the green transition take place in DFDS and The Blue Denmark in order to 2. Compare the actual practice with theory within innovation in bureaucracies, with the aim to 3. Understand key socio-cultural and organizational challenges prevailing in shipping in 2023 so that new perspectives 4. Can inspire the industry to revisit their practices. 

So what…?
The shipping industry carries 80-90% of global goods and accounts for 2.5% of global CO2 emissions. Seaborne transportation is the most cost- and energy-efficient way of moving goods. Helping the industry with their transitioning towards sustainability is important. The industry is highly advanced within new technology and fuels, but still lagging behind, why? This project is important because it provides the industry with new knowledge and a new understanding. We wish to ask new questions, to solve new problems. Applying an ethnographic perspective in shipping will create new knowledge, especially within a topic like the green transition. We wish to understand the underlying assumptions, the hegemony affecting decisions and actions in the transition to qualify the debate on how to create real change in shipping not only with sustainability but in general. 

How did I get here?
The shipping industry, often characterized as conservative and bureaucratic,  is facing the green transition. We wish to understand how change can happen in an industry like this, molded by a long history of control, global competition, commercial interests and a hierarchical and bureaucratic organization. According to theory within innovation it is difficult to facilitate change within the bureaucratic structures, but change is happening – how?  On the other hand, some would argue that change is not happening fast enough, so what is influencing the transition? Through this project we wish to understand the everyday lives in the industry, what is actually going on and how can we support the transition needed in the industry. 

Who I am
My name is Nanna Thit and I am a soon to be “business”-PhD-student at Arts, together with DFDS. My research evolves around the social and organizational aspects of shipping. In my sparetime I read the big classics and paint.