GreenTech 2024: largest number of delegates to celebrate new milestones

“It’s so great to have so many people genuinely interested in making the maritime transportation industry in all its forms more environmentally sustainable,” says David Bolduc, Green Marine International’s president and CEO. “The amount of relevant information shared during our panel discussions, exhibition hall networking, and site visits has been extensive.”

GreenTech 2024’s sessions covered a broad range of current maritime industry priorities, from advancing decarbonization to financing transitions to establishing green corridors. Other topics included reducing underwater noise and reassessing Arctic shipping to better integrate Indigenous knowledge and concerns.

The conference drew maritime stakeholders from throughout North America. Ana María Camacho Carranza is the director of government relations and public affairs for SSA México, which is Mexico’s main container terminal. GreenTech 2024 was her second time attending the Green Marine annual conference, and she plans to return next year.

“I find the topics addressed each year are truly at the forefront of our industry’s efforts to adopt best practices and technologies to protect the environment and natural resources for marine and human life,” she told Green Marine Magazine.

Several Green Marine Europe representatives were also present. “GreenTech let me realize the scale of this North American event,” shares Romain Benoît, the outreach officer from the Surfrider Foundation Europe for Green Marine Europe. “It was a real pleasure to find all the North American and certain European stakeholders mobilized to reduce their environmental footprint… and a precious moment of sharing with our Canadian and American Green Marine colleagues.”

Green Marine International’s board of directors has an equal number of male and female members. (See story on Green Marine International)

Keynote speaker Danièle Sauvageau, who has participated in 10 Olympic Games as the Canadian women’s hockey coach, general manager and coaching mentor, remarked on the importance of gender representation as the 2024 Summer Games was about to have an equal representation of female and male athletes for the first time in its history. She noted its importance in terms of “a richer diversity of interests, experience and ideas… to better find out what half the people in the world need and think.”

Sauvageau recalled being among the only 127 females in a force of 6,000 officers when she first joined the Montreal Police Service. “Then I was a role model just to give others hope,” she recalled.

Her 33 years of service with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Montreal Police Service, along with her decade of Olympic experience, taught her that good leadership derives from being open to people with diverse knowledge, experience and opinions. “I actually learnt from sports psychology that you need to keep those people whose ideas you oppose right now at the table because one day they might have the really different idea that needs to be followed,” she shared.

Annual Performance Report

Green Marine continued to demonstrate its leadership in sustainability with 187 participants – ship owners, port authorities, terminal operators and/or shipyard managers – achieving their certification for their 2023 environmental performance.

The participants achieved a global of average of 2.9 on the program’s 1-to-5 scale with this midpoint reflecting the certification’s rigour with demanding but still feasible goals.

“We’re happy to see a nearly identical average to the previous year even though we’ve had the largest number of self-evaluations submitted to date for these most recent certifications,” Bolduc says. “It reflects the fact that our long-term participants are continuing to improve their sustainability by an average of 10% year over year, as the program at the same time welcomes a steady influx of new members.”

A significant number of evaluations for 2023 were from new participants. They often begin the program at Level 1 or 2 with it taking some time to become familiar with all the program’s applicable criteria and then to put action plans into place. A total of 220 self-evaluations were completed, representing a more than 20% increase over the previous year.

Terminals accounted for more than half of the newly reporting participants for 2023, with some being brand new to the program and others having their locations submitted by their parent company for the first time. Shipyards had a 50% increase among its participating membership.

View the 2023 Annual Performance Report

GreenTech 2024 concluded with Emily Federer, the sustainability manager at the Port of New Orleans, warmly inviting everyone to attend GreenTech 2025 in The Crescent City / Big Easy from June 9 to 11, 2025. A short film showcased just some of the sustainable efficiencies that have facilitated Louisiana’s only deepwater container port having a capacity to handle one million TEUs yearly, as well as being the sixth largest U.S. cruise port.

Green Marine will have a lot more information in the months to come regarding this first endeavour on the Gulf Coast, in New Orleans – a city renowned for its diverse culture, scrumptious food, legendary jazz and joie de vivre!

View the photo gallery