Green Award

Jan Fransen (center, seated) during lifeboat training from a trading vessel off the UK South Coast. © Green Award Foundation

Jan in company uniform at the start of his seafaring career. © Green Award Foundation

25 September 2025 – From the age of four, when I was growing up in a small town in the Netherlands, the sea was part of my daily view and my dreams. Watching ships sail out from the harbor, I knew I wanted to follow them. That decision shaped my life: twelve years at sea in the Dutch merchant navy, years that gave me not only a career but also a deep respect for the ocean. Anyone who has spent long nights on deck knows the ocean is more than water. It is a living force, unpredictable, generous, and fragile. I still miss those days, because when you are at sea, you form a relationship with it that never leaves you.

This year’s World Maritime Day theme, “Our Ocean, Our Obligation, Our Opportunity”, captures exactly what I have felt throughout my life. The ocean is both our workplace and our responsibility. It challenges us, depends on us, and offers us the chance to build something better. For shipping, the largest user of ocean space, the responsibility is immense and so is the opportunity to lead in protecting it.

When I came ashore in the 1980s, I began to see shipping from a different angle. Safety, traffic management, and environmental protection became my tools to safeguard what I had once sailed across. That path eventually led me to help establish the Green Award Foundation in 1994, where I now serve as Executive Director.

At Green Award, our mission is simple but powerful: to encourage safer, cleaner, and more sustainable shipping. Our certification programme is voluntary, because I believe change should come from conviction, not compulsion. Shipowners who join us are not just complying with regulations; they are going above and beyond them.

Jan Fransen (standing at the wheel stand, center) with engineers and officers during coffee time on an Atlantic crossing, serving as Third Officer. © Green Award Foundation

Certified ships commit to higher standards that directly protect the ocean: oil spill prevention and emergency plans, garbage management systems, careful ballast water practices, stricter fuel handling, and emission reductions. We also address less visible issues, such as underwater noise that can disturb whales and other marine life. Our standards extend further still, covering biofouling and invasive species control as well as the well-being of seafarers, because sustainability is environmental and human. Each step matters, because each reduces the risks that shipping places on the marine environment.

These are not abstract measures; they are concrete ways of honoring our shared obligation. And the opportunity is clear: ports, charterers, cargo owners and others increasingly value sustainability. Certified vessels help protect the sea while earning recognition, incentives and trust across the industry.

The ocean has given me a career, a lifelong passion, and countless moments of awe. Today, as we mark World Maritime Day, I see my role as giving something back.

Jan at his desk, steering Green Award in the present day. © Green Award Foundation