Clean-Marine-Award

The shipping company Braren from Kollmar / Elbe received the “Environmental Oscar” Clean Marine Award at the “Green Week” in Brussels.

The “Quality Shipping Initiative” of the Society for Applied Environmental Protection and Safety in Maritime Transport – in short: GAUSS – as well as the shipowner Roerd Braren, presented the “Clean Marine Award” by EU Environment Commissioner Margot Wallström The awarding of the “Environmental Oscars” The European Commission took place during Green Week in Brussels.

Among other things, the “EU Ship Operator with Low-Emission Operation” award is based on equipping ships with SCR catalytic converters and using bunker oil with 0.6 – 0.9% sulfur content. Although additional costs for environmentally sound ship operations, which alone cost about $ 200 per day for urea and about $ 20 per tonne for low-sulfur fuel, can not be compensated for by the reduced fees for low-emission ships in Swedish ports, the shipping company sees its environmental commitment as a competitive advantage : “Environmental awareness is high in Sweden and part of our corporate philosophy, and we meet the needs of our customers, which is rewarded by high levels of loyalty and long-term charter contracts,” says Breder.

Another element of the GAUSS “Quality Shipping Initiative” is the recently started research and development project “Development of Environment Standards for Innovative Shipbuilding” (DESIS), which is being worked on together with the Department of Shipbuilding, Marine Technology and Applied Sciences of the University of Bremen , GAUSS Project Manager Captain Christian Bahlke explains: “Within the project funded by the German Federal Environment Agency, innovative shipbuilding aspects will be investigated to improve maritime environmental protection in regular operations and to reduce the effects of accidents, covering all important areas of shipbuilding and plant construction the internationally binding standard to the best available technic examined. ”

Captain Bahlke continued: “This is done by comparing exemplary concepts or legislative and technical initiatives to bring them together in a catalog of measures for the construction of environmentally friendly ships, which will then define a demanding standard, taking into account financial feasibility, future technical and legal developments picks up. ”

Similar to the development of the catalog of criteria for the Blue Angel, the project team relies on the cooperation of, among others, shipyards, shipowners, plant builders, classification societies, See-BG, the German Shipowners’ Association or the Green Award. “Ultimately, our ‘Quality Shipping Initiative’ aims for an attractive economic incentive system for the shipping industry, and it is difficult to see that shipowners and shippers’ exemplary commitment to environmental protection, safety and human resources development is not rewarded financially either Discounts on user charges for the maritime traffic infrastructure Good ships shall drive bad ships out of business – that’s our leitmotif! ” CEO Knoop summarizes the quality-shipping activities of the research and service organization GAUSS.