Psychological Safety, Crew Certification, and the Economics of Welfare with Susanne Justesen

Raal Harris speaks with Susanne Justesen of the Global Maritime Forum about the evolution of the All Aboard Alliance and a new industry effort to establish transparent, independently verified crew welfare standards. The conversation explores fatigue, psychological safety, data ownership, commercial incentives, and why shipping must move beyond minimum compliance toward measurable human sustainability.

• 01:22 Susanne Justesen on joining maritime and the role of GMF
• 04:20 How the Global Maritime Forum drives industry collaboration
• 07:00 The origins and evolution of the All Aboard Alliance
• 11:15 Why crew welfare, diversity and safety are interconnected
• 14:45 Maritime exceptionalism and lessons from other sectors
• 18:05 Sustainable crewing guidelines and sharing best practice
• 22:10 Moving from self-assessment to measurable transparency
• 25:00 New welfare standards, benchmarking and certification plans
• 28:10 Aligning commercial incentives with crew welfare
• 31:15 Charterers, retailers and the challenge of transparency
• 34:00 Human data, AI and concerns around surveillance
• 38:00 Learning from what works rather than only failures
• 41:00 What happens next for the Alliance and its standards work
• 44:00 Closing remarks

Episode Shownotes

Recorded live from the IMEC People at the Helm conference in Southampton, Raal Harris sits down with Susanne Justesen, Human Sustainability Director at the Global Maritime Forum, to discuss the next phase of the All Aboard Alliance and the industry’s growing focus on measurable crew welfare standards.

The conversation begins with Susanne’s route into maritime from the world of innovation and diversity advisory work, before unpacking the role GMF plays in convening senior leaders across shipping’s value chain to tackle problems that regulation alone has struggled to solve.

From there, the discussion turns to the origins of the All Aboard Alliance and how its initial focus on diversity, equity and inclusion has evolved into a broader effort to improve living and working conditions at sea. Susanne explains why fatigue, safety, psychological wellbeing and inclusion cannot be treated as separate issues, and why the industry needs clearer ways to identify what “good” actually looks like onboard.

A major focus of the episode is the Alliance’s newly launched initiative to develop independently verifiable crew welfare standards. Susanne outlines plans for global benchmarking, transparency around operational indicators, and certification models that could eventually help charterers, financiers and cargo owners distinguish between vessels based not only on technical performance, but also on the conditions experienced by crews.

The conversation also explores the economics behind welfare investment, the risks of fragmented customer-led regulation, and the growing importance of human-centred operational data. Raal and Susanne discuss AI, fatigue monitoring, psychological safety, and the tension between useful insight and intrusive surveillance.

The episode closes with a wider reflection on culture change in shipping: why the industry often focuses too heavily on failures, and why meaningful progress may come faster by studying vessels and operators where things are already working well.

Episode Partner

This episode of Undocked is brought to you by IEC Telecom.

IEC Telecom delivers fully integrated multi-orbit connectivity solutions for maritime and offshore operations, combining LEO and GEO networks into seamless, reliable systems at sea.

Learn more at iec-telecom.com