Green Marine welcomes largest-ever new cohort of participants

Green Marine announced the environmental performance results of its participating membership for the 2023 year during its annual GreenTech conference at the Halifax Convention Centre this morning.

The participating ship owners, ports, terminals, shipyards, and Seaway corporations achieved significant improvements in 2023 with more of them reaching the program’s higher levels in this 16th consecutive year of Green Marine results.

Green Marine’s cumulative effect in reducing maritime transportation’s environmental footprint has been substantial, with the greatest progress being made by long-term participants. In fact, the average level of participants increases by 10% annually for each additional year they report their environmental efforts.

For the 2023 year of activity, a total of 220 self-evaluations were completed, which is 20% more than for the previous year! More than 1,400 individual performance indicator results were related. An unprecedented number of evaluations were submitted by new participants. They often begin the program at Level 1 or 2 as they require some time to become familiar with all the criteria for their applicable performance indicators and then to put action plans into place.

“This is the largest ever new cohort of participants reporting on their performance for the first time,” says David Bolduc, Green Marine’s president. “This increase reflects the program’s strong appeal with terminals including additional locations to their certification, and the shipyard membership rising by 44%.”

2023 Results highlights:

• For all the air emissions indicators, at least half of the participating ship owners reached Level 3 or higher, which requires them to carry out annual inventories.
• Green Marine landside participants are taking harmonious coexistence seriously: the community impacts and community relations indicators collectively account for a total of 65 levels of improvement.
• Two thirds of all the participants obtained Level 3 or higher for the greenhouse gas performance indicator, reflecting their significant efforts towards ultimately achieving decarbonization.

Even with the unprecedented rise in new participants and revised criteria, the participating membership’s global average remains steady at 2.9 on the program’s 1-to-5 performance scale. This mid-point reflects the program’s rigour with demanding but still feasible goals.

“We’re delighted to see a nearly identical global average in 2023 to the previous year given that this is largest number of self-evaluations submitted to date,” Bolduc says. “It indicates that our existing participants continue to improve their sustainability as the organization increases its numbers.”

The certification process is rigorous and transparent, with results independently verified every two years and each participant's individual performance made public annually. 

Green Marine’s 14 environmental performance indicators serving as a guiding framework for the participants can also be found online.

View the news release in PDF