JOINT MEDIA RELEASE
BY RIGHTSHIP PTY LTD AND GREEN AWARD FOUNDATION
19 June 2003
Green Award and RightShip Join Forces
In a first for Australia, the Netherlands-based Green Award Foundation and Melbourne-based RightShip Pty Ltd have agreed to work together to boost incentives for quality ship owners, and remove substandard shipping from the world’s oceans.
Green Award Deputy Managing Director Jan Fransen and Rightship’s CEO Warwick Norman met in Melbourne this week.
“Green Award is the only global, independent, non-profit quality assurance organisation that works by offering incentives to quality owners and vessels”, Mr Fransen said. “By choosing partners like Rightship, we are able to offer clients of both organisations even greater benefits as an incentive to pursue higher quality.”
Warwick Norman agreed, saying: “Most of the pressure to lift standards is negative. Both RightShip and Green Award are keen to give positive benefits to good owners and managers, and the shippers and charterers who use their quality vessels.”
Since 1994, Green Award has signed up over 45 ports and marine providers in seven countries, that offer lower rates and other benefits to ships, owners and managers that have won Green Award certification.
Green Award currently has over 160 certified vessels from more than 30 owners. Mr Fransen said this was growing all the time, as Green Award promoted the benefits and convinced more partners to offer incentives.
The partnership with specialised vetting company RightShip will mean mutual benefits for the organisations’ clients.
Any ship that has passed the stringent Green Award certification process will be rewarded in RightShip’s online vetting system. Charterers vetting ships will see immediately which have Green Award certificates, and the system will automatically upgrade ships which Green Award has certified.
“For our clients, it will mean even better information about ships available, and will give them the chance to select ships that have been through Green Award’s stringent system”, Mr Norman said.
“We have a lot of confidence in Green Award’s rating process. Like RightShip, Green Award places a lot of weight on the quality of the ship’s ownership, management and crewing, and they also use a wide range of factors to rate each ship.”
Mr Norman said that, in RightShips’ one to five star rating system, a Green Award certificate would be equivalent to an upgrade of one full star.
Mr Fransen said owners and managers who had successfully applied for Green Award certification would be very pleased to have this additional recognition.
“It means that quality Green Award vessels, rewarded with incentives, are being highlighted to all RightShip’s clients, including shipper and charterers worldwide. That’s a very attractive additional benefit to certification.”
Mr Norman and Mr Fransen said they hoped that by sharing information, they could increase the advantages to owners and managers who operate ships above required compliance standards, and make it easier for shippers and charterers to identify and use quality vessels.
For further information contact:
Warwick Norman
Manager and CEO, RightShip Pty Ltd
+61 3 9283 3266 (office)
+61 419 582 855 (mobile)