CentrePort Wellington: new Green Award incentive provider

CentrePort Wellington has decided to award a reduction on port dues to sea-going vessels certified by the Green Award Foundation. With this decision CentrePort Wellington, which is a focal point in central New Zealand's logistics network, is actively voicing its policy to promote quality in the port.

The incentive offered by CentrePort for Green Award accredited bulk carriers and oil tankers is 3% of the port's Marine Services Charge (MSC) applicable to each specific vessel. The official commencement date is the 27th of February 2007.

Green Award is delighted with the participation of CentrePort Wellington. Green Award hopes that more ports will participate in the scheme whereby the mutual advantages can be developed further: ports receive more quality ships and ship-owners who want to invest in cleaner, safer management, are in turn rewarded for this.

 http://www.centreport.co.nz/ 

Dr. Sabine Knapp: Green Award ships perform better

'On average, ships that are certified by Green Award show a lower amount of deficiencies in almost categories versus ships that are not certified'.

This is one of the conclusions of the dissertation Ms Sabine Knapp successfully defended at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam on 25th January 2007. The thesis was called: 'The Econometrics of Maritime Safety -Recommendations to Enhance Safety at Sea'.

Dr. Knapp's thesis should be seen and understood as a first attempt to study Port State Control on a global scale by measuring the effect of inspections on the probability of casualties and by identifying areas for improvement.

The thesis is based on 183.000 Port State Control inspections and 11.000 casualties (globally) from 1999 to 2004. Dr. Knapp researched criteria on which ships are selected for inspection and indicated that further improvements on targeting sub-standard ships can be made. The classic variables such as e.g. age, ship type, size, flag or owner are valid variables, but new variables like the total inspection history of a ship should be added to improve the effectiveness of inspections.

One out of several possibilities for further improvement would be to include if a vessel had been inspected by one of the vetting inspection regimes or certified by the Green Award Foundation.

In the research, data from Green Award was merged with the total dataset. The result can be seen in the figure below. On average, ships that are certified by Green Award show a lower amount of deficiencies in almost all inspection categories.

In the area dealing with safety and fire appliances (code 600 and 700) the difference is significant. The same applies for code 900 (structural safety), code 1200 (load lines), code 1500 (safety of navigation) and code 1700 (Marpol Annex 1: Oil pollution). Also remarkable is the Green Award score for code 2500 (ISM code).

Overall one can conclude that Green Award certified vessels (0.7 deficiencies) show a better performance in Port State Control than non-certified vessels (2.6 deficiencies) and that the incentive to perform better does pay off for the ship owner.

ISBN 90-5892-127-1

www.erim.eur.nl

Certificate “new style”

Certificate “old style”

Unjustified claims of Green Award incentives

Green Award incentive providers are reporting more unjustified claims of Green Award incentives from non-certified GA vessels.

With the growing recognition of Green Award, the Bureau has been receiving more reports from incentive providers concerning the falsification of Green Award Certificates ànd non-certified vessels claiming to be GA certified.

It is therefore of the utmost importance that certificates be controlled and vessels checked on the GA website. Not only is this important for the incentive providers financially, it is important for Green Award and those involved that the high standards for which GA stands be maintained.

An example of the current (new) Green Award certificate can be found on the left. As the ships receive a complete new certificate only once in three years, a certificate 'old style' might also be presented during the transition period. This certificate is also valid if the ship is on the list of certified ships.

New Green Award surveyor

Green Award has from March 2007, a new addition to her team. Henk Hoogerbeets fulfills the role as Ship Surveyor Trainee.

After the successful fulfillment of an intensive education and training program he will be appointed Green Award Surveyor. The education and training program is developed by Green Award and approved and accredited by the Nautical Institute.

Henk is Dutch and lives in Rotterdam. He graduated in 1980 from the Nautical College 'Willem Barentz' on Terschelling and began his career at sea serving as Cadet Officer on oil tanker ships for a major Dutch oil company.

Feeling the need to gain his experience on all different types of vessels, Henk sailed the world for about 20 years onboard cargo vessels and chemical/ oil tankers. He became a Master Mariner in 1990 and as from the mid 90's commanded several chemical tankers under Dutch and Norwegian Management.

In 2001 he stepped down as Master to accept a claim handling role within a P&I insurance company which is based in the Netherlands.

As from today Henk is joining the team of the Green Award Bureau in Rotterdam. He is very enthusiastic to be part of the Green Award Foundation and its mission and looks forward to meeting the motivated Green Award crews and management companies.