The Green Award Foundation is delighted to announce the cooperation with the International Association of Ports and Harbors (IAPH) and taking on the assigned role of administering and managing their Environmental Ship Index (ESI) program. Already for many years the Green Award Foundation worked in close cooperation with developing ESI which was finally embedded within the IAPH.

One of the big steps made by ESI is to also enhance onboard verifications to control the formula-based index by structured means. The ESI dedicated staff, as well as Green Award surveyors will actively be involved with physical verification of ship specific data leading to the unique ship specific index within the ESI. These synergies between both programs and Green Award’s operational experience built up over 27 years made this a logical match. Green Award has already been cooperating with and complementing the ESI program, also by granting extra scores within the Green Award ranking system that lead to Green Award ship certification.

Already over a six months period the Green Award Foundation, in its capacity as an incentive provider to ESI, was involved with testing, enhancing and administering the ESI database in close cooperation with several port officials and IAPH involved. The Foundation trained ESI dedicated staff for daily operations. The web based ESI database is operated, managed and updated by the dedicated staff in close cooperation with the ESI Board and its advisory group.

Green Award Executive Director J.A.A.J. (Jan) Fransen comments : “With this agreement with IAPH, we take a step further in accomplishing our vision of driving the highest standards in environmental performance and safety in international shipping. By operating this non-profit certification scheme that assesses ship environmental performance based on continuous improvement, we offer owners and operators further motivation for environmentally-responsible shipping.”

IAPH Technical Director Antonis Michail commented : “The agreement IAPH has signed with Green Award is to take the Environmental Ship Index to the next level in terms of full-time administrative support, governance and further expansion. The ESI has become the established standard upon which port authorities and maritime administrations incentivise ship owners and ship owner- operators to continuously improve the environmental performance of the fleets calling at their terminals. In partnership with Green Award, we aim to expand the range of potential emissions including greenhouse gases in the calculation and will further enhance the separate noise emission functionality. Right now, the strongest representation we have on the Index comes from the container shipping sector, with over half of the world fleet registered. Tankers (gas, chemical and oil) are also well represented with 28% of the world fleet. The focus will be on growing the number of registered dry bulk and general cargo vessels as well as ro-ro and cruise vessels.”

Established in 1994, Green Award is a global, independent, non-profit organisation with the primary task of certifying ship managers and vessels that go beyond the industry standards in terms of safety, quality and environmental performance, and allowing them to take advantage from extra benefits they receive for being frontrunners on many aspects. The foundation is governed by industry representatives such as maritime authorities and classification societies, provides data to Equasis (the database containing safety-related information on the world’s merchant fleet), and facilitates a network of benefits shipowners can gain from. Green Award has been an active member and Incentive Provider to the IAPH ESI, having collaborated with the Working Group since its foundation back in 2011. Apart from its program for ocean going vessels, the Green Award Foundation also operates a certification program for inland vessels operating on European rivers and canals since 2011.
Source: Green Award Foundation