There’s a key difference between Ugo Salerno and all his counterparts at the International Association of Classification Societies (IACS). The engaging chairman and CEO has headed up Itay’s RINA for the past 19 years, seeing through peaks and troughs of shipping cycles and with a far longer top executive view of shipping’s path to decarbonisation than any other class head honcho.

Back in 2002, when Salerno moved from Coerclerici to take the reins at RINA, the class society was making EUR85m ...