Ship Recycling Transparency Initiative’s Online Platform Goes Live

The platform comes nine months after a group of shipping companies led by Hapag-Lloyd and Maersk, first announced their collective effort to use the market-drivers that transparency brings to make responsible ship recycling the norm. The platform aims to create a level-playing field for responsible recycling by giving shipping companies an opportunity to be transparent on their approach to ship dismantling, creating fair competition, improving performance and enabling the shipping industry to be held to account. In 2017, 835 ships were recycled out of a world fleet of 50,0001. Out of these, 80.3% or 543 large ocean-going commercial vessels reached the tidal beaches of Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan, according to the data from NGO Shipbreaking Platform. “With transparency on shipping companies’ ship recycling policies and practices, it becomes possible for the industry’s stakeholders – including shippers, lenders, investors, and insurers – to make informed decisions. The importance of such decisions is increasing with the growing expectation for companies to take responsibility for their value chain sustainability,” the Sustainable Shipping Initiative (SSI) said.