New Blue Accounting involves Green Marine metrics

Blue Accounting, a new Great Lakes Commission initiative, features an online platform that will relate the measurable progress towards nine desired environmental, social and economic outcomes for the Great Lakes region.

All of the goals and their related metrics and achievement strategies have been developed by the collaborative efforts of key stakeholders and experts to better protect, restore and utilize the Great Lakes.

Two of the metrics are based on participation and performance in the Green Marine environmental certification program in order to continually gauge the sustainability engagement and stewardship of maritime firms conducting business within the region’s Maritime Transportation System (MTS). Specifically:

• System participation is measured by the number of MTS-participating firms that obtain yearly Green Marine certification.
• Performance improvement is measured by the number of MTS-participating firms achieving each of the progressively more demanding levels of achievement within the Green Marine program for each of its environmental performance indicators.

The initial data released earlier this summer already indicates greater engagement and stewardship by MTS-participating firms over the past decade, based on increased Green Marine enrolment and improved performance results over time.