GREEN MARINE PARTICIPANTS CONTINUE TO ADVANCE THEIR ENVIRONMENTAL PERFORMANCE
Quebec City, Tuesday, May 31, 2016 – This morning Green Marine, a North American environmental certification program, unveiled its participants’ environmental performance results for the year 2015 as part of the opening session of its GreenTech 2016 conference taking place at the Hilton Québec until tomorrow.
Green Marine’s participants maintained an overall average of 3.2 on a 1-to-5 scale, with Level 1 indicating monitoring of regulations and Level 5 reflecting excellence and leadership. Green Marine participants are ship owners, port authorities, Seaway corporations, terminal owners and shipyard operators. To assure the program’s rigour and transparency, participants must undergo an external verification every two years, and each participant’s individual results are published annually. The voluntary environmental program has 12 performance indicators that address environmental issues such as air pollution emissions, greenhouse gases, aquatic invasive species, waste management and community impacts.
« Improving from an average of 2 in 2008 to 3.2 in 2015 is no small feat, » says David Bolduc, Green Marine’s executive director, explaining that the program has significantly augmented its criteria every year, as well as welcomed quite a number of new participants. « Ports and terminals, for instance, have a new performance indicator this year: waste management. »
Performance levels are not the only thing on the rise. Green Marine’s membership is also enjoying a strong upward curve! The environmental program has tripled the number of its participants since its inception in 2007. There are currently 103 participants compared to 34 when the program started nine years ago.
« This increase demonstrates that an increasing portion of the marine industry is committed to pursuing sustainable development through Green Marine, » says Paul Gourdeau, who chairs Green Marine’s Board of Directors and is the president of Federal Marine Terminals.
Green Marine achieved a milestone in February by welcoming its 100th participant: Port Canaveral in Florida. « This continued expansion is proof that a voluntary certification program meets a need,” notes Bolduc, “and that we are making progress in the mission that we have set to advance North America’s marine industry environmental excellence. »
The 2015 Performance Report, containing the individual results of all of the program’s participants, is available at www.green-marine.org .