Green Marine participants hold course as certification widens
New Orleans, LA – Green Marine has announced the results of its annual certification program as its membership also celebrated several milestones during its GreenTech 2025 conference at the Hilton Riverside Hotel.
“I am so pleased and proud of the Green Marine participants for being as committed as ever to voluntarily improving the sustainability of their maritime operations,” David Bolduc, Green Marine International’s president and CEO, said. “The ship owners, port authorities, terminal and shipyard operators in our program are clearly aware of how continually improving their sustainability is good business.”
On Wednesday, he will have the pleasure of presenting the certificates being awarded to participants for their 2024 sustainability efforts. A total of 243 self-evaluations were submitted for the year’s certification – an 10% increase over 2023. Most of this growth stemmed from terminal operators enrolling additional locations into the program after initial sites had successfully gone through the process.
“It is a strong indication of how our step-by-step guidance works in providing a challenging but feasible plan to achieve measurable, verifiable improvements year over year,” Bolduc says. “It takes some work, but it’s certainly doable.”
The overall yearly average by participants for the 2024 self-evaluation process held steady at 2.9 on the program’s one-to-five scale. This level was achieved in the context of several new challenges that include a new performance indicator for ports regarding aquatic ecosystems, additional criteria within other existing indicators, and new participants that generally take some time to familiarize themselves with the requirements and start implementing the necessary actions.
Ship owners achieved the highest average in the two biodiversity-related indicators: Aquatic Invasive Species (3.5) and Underwater Noise (3.3). Ports lead in social acceptability and community-related areas with top averages in Community Relations (3.7), Environmental Leadership (3.7), and Community Impacts (3.2). Terminal and shipyard operators performed best in terms of air quality, obtaining the highest overall averages in Air Emissions – Greenhouse Gases with averages of 3.4 and 2.6, respectively.
“Our data for 17 years of consecutive annual certification reflects the continual year-over-year improvement of participants that remain in the program with them progressively fulfilling the criteria necessary at its higher levels,” Bolduc notes.
Delegates at GreenTech 2025 are celebrating the first anniversary of Green Marine International’s creation in May 2024 as the overseeing governance structure for both the Green Marine and the Green Marine Europe certification programs. The new organization ensures a consistently high level of credibility, rigour and transparency in the annual certification programs while facilitating regional differences in regulations and/or priorities.
A pilot project subsequently carried out under the new global structure determined that the Green Marine program is readily applicable to maritime operations in Australia, Mexico and the Caribbean. “We are delighted to welcome additional participants from Australia and to open the program for the first time to Mexico and the Bahamas,” Bolduc says.
The GreenTech conference – now in its 18th annual edition – is known for the camaraderie that it has established among peers within the maritime industry. Its location is changed annually to always give new people an opportunity to attend. Thanks to presentations from industry stakeholders, academic and research institutions, and environmental and community organizations, all participants benefit from the shared knowledge, experience, and perspectives on making shipping greener. The trade show booths also contribute to this sharing of ideas.