AWO strengthens partnership with Green Marine
Written by Marine Log Staff
Aiming to advance environmental stewardship in the U.S. tugboat, towboat and barge industry, AWO (the American Waterways Operators) has become an association member of Green Marine, the largest voluntary environmental certification program for North America’s maritime industry.
“This partnership will provide AWO more tools and resources to share with our members and help them excel in a world of evolving environmental expectations,” explains AWO President and CEO Jennifer A. Carpenter.
“We are very pleased to formalize an existing collaboration between AWO and Green Marine on defining environmental best practices,” said Green Marine Executive Director David Bolduc. “Welcoming AWO as our 35th Association member is another step in a growing collaboration between our two organizations.”
LONG COLLABORATION
While AWO is a new member of Green Marine, the organizations are not strangers, as AWO and Green Marine have been collaborating for years.
Green Marine’s Senior Program Manager Dr. Eleanor Kirtley has been serving on AWO’s Environmental Stewardship Working Group since its inception. The working group is surveying solutions to advance the environmental performance of the tugboat, towboat and barge industry in key environmental areas such as air and water quality, waste management, energy efficiency and corporate responsibility. These same issues are at the core of Green Marine’s voluntary environmental certification program.
Brian Bailey, AWO’s Director – Safety and Environmental Stewardship, serves as a member of the committee for Green Marine’s 2021 annual flagship event, GreenTech, a conference focused on maritime transportation and its greater sustainability through greener technologies, innovation and best practices. Bailey also moderated GreenTech 2020’s session on reducing and counting greenhouse gas emissions.
Green Marine says it is looking forward to further sharing experience to assist AWO and its members in developing and implementing voluntary, beyond-compliance, scalable and measurable best practices as part of our shared commitment to environmental excellence.
GREEN MARINE
Founded in 2007, Green Marine’s North American environmental certification program is the result of a voluntary effort by the shipping industry to go beyond regulations.
There are currently 150 ship owners, port authorities, terminal and shipyard operators throughout Canada and the United States participating in the program. The Green Marine certification process is rigorous and transparent: the results are independently verified every two years and the participants’ individual results are published annually.
