It seems we find ourselves in an era of “cascading crises”. The de-risked, de-coupled, low growth, fractious trading environment that the industry is navigating today is laden with uncertainty.

China’s growth engine is sputtering. The consequences of sanctions and regional bloc economics is creating a bi-polar political and trading environment and inflation is starting to bite.

And then there’s the existing twin track revolution of decarbonisation and digitalisation to deal with.

For those of you returning to the Lloyd’s List Podcast after our short summer hiatus – don’t worry – we haven’t run out of topics to talk about.

This week the great and the good of the shipping industry are descending on Lloyd’s List’s doorstep for London International Shipping Week and, not wishing to disappoint our guests we’re going to be running a daily podcast for the duration of the discussions.

We are starting a week of LISW podcasts with a whistlestop tour of the issues keeping industry executives awake at night.

Today’s edition features:

• Nikolaus H. Schües, BIMCO President and CEO and owner of Reederei F. Laeisz

• Sarah Treseder, UK Chamber of Shipping. Chief Executive

• Guy Platten, secretary general, International Chamber of Shipping

• Michael Parker, Chairman, Global Shipping, Logistics & Offshore at Citi and one of the architects of the Poseidon Principles