Many laws associated to waste administration and disposal solely come into power when a vessel is inside one in every of these zones, which makes the problem of figuring out the exact boundaries of zones all of the extra essential. (Credit: OneOcean)
OneOcean is a worldwide provider of voyage options for the maritime trade, utilized by over 15,000 vessels internationally. OneOcean’s options are centered on supporting and optimizing navigation and compliance whereas additionally providing extra environment friendly, cleaner, and safer practices.
Marine Log spoke with Adam Pang and Nicholas Bourque about OneOcean, their maritime options, and the trail to a extra sustainable maritime trade.
Pang joined OneOcean in February 2021 as chief industrial officer, and is liable for defining and sustaining industrial technique, architecting and integrating the income system, and designing and launching income producing packages to drive enterprise development and market share. As CCO, Adam will take possession of the shopper and the shopper interface ensuring that every one features of the group are aligned to satisfy its strategic industrial targets.
He has over 20 years’ expertise in B2B software program environments, constructing industrial groups at scale utilizing trendy information pushed insights and the newest expertise to empower world groups.
Bourque is chief technique officer at OneOcean, and his position is to deliver OneOcean’s product portfolio collectively to create related options that ship actual advantages for the maritime trade. Nicholas additionally focuses on creating the corporate’s future technique and delivering its imaginative and prescient to supply options that reinforce safer, cleaner, and extra environment friendly working practices.
Marine Log (ML): Can you start by describing what sustainability means to OneOcean, each broadly and within the context of the maritime trade?
Nicholas Bourque (NB): For OneOcean, sustainability means serving to our prospects meet the wants of their enterprise within the current with out compromising the flexibility of future generations to satisfy their wants. It means selling a enterprise mannequin that ties development and progress to the promotion of a wholesome setting.
In our sector of the trade, which is maritime expertise, this entails empowering our prospects, ship homeowners and managers, to regulate their fleet operations to advertise greater requirements of environmental excellence. Within the context of our portfolio, this implies serving to prospects plan and implement environment friendly, compliant, top quality seafaring practices that decrease emissions, reduce waste, and get rid of environmental regulatory infractions that compromise marine ecosystems and result in heavy fines.
ML: What is the connection between effectivity and sustainability, and the way does expertise, reminiscent of that provided via OneOcean, facilitate each?
NB: High ranges of effectivity are a requirement to reaching sustainability. If lack of sustainability could be regarded as prioritizing the wants of the current with no regard to how they’re detrimental to the wants of the longer term, then it stands to motive that these practices don’t make an environment friendly use of sources over the long run.
The OneOcean suite of merchandise facilitates a holistic strategy to understanding and enhancing environmental efficiency for ship homeowners and managers. Our portfolio allows shoreside groups and onboard crew to speak successfully, and work in unison to handle and guarantee environmental compliance and cut back danger.
The introduction of distant expertise additionally permits providers and information to be delivered digitally. This has a far decrease carbon footprint than the deployment of paper and hardware-based information. Digital expertise reminiscent of ours gives faster updates on evolving conditions. During voyages, leaders want to have the ability to draw on real-time information to empower better-informed and subsequently extra environmentally pleasant decision-making in doubtlessly turbulent conditions.
ML: Can you discuss a bit bit about OneOcean’s Environmental Planner, and the way it presents transport firms with a extra sustainable strategy to working enterprise?
Adam Pang (AP): The Environmental Planner in OneOcean’s EnviroManager+ makes use of a dynamic, colour-coded timeline to supply a real-time look forward at every of the environmental guidelines and restrictions in power throughout a voyage. The timeline shows a complete record of environmental occasions damaged down by waste stream, and visually depicts once they can safely and legally happen aboard a vessel throughout a rolling 12-hour window, based mostly on the ship’s departure time, its present place, and pace.
This makes it a lot simpler to plan operations round laws in place, with peace of thoughts that vessels are in full compliance with environmental restrictions. Relevant information for environmental planning and navigation is introduced on one display, which means information units could be visualised in context to one another. Actions, reminiscent of discharges and emissions, are detailed by class and could be grouped according to the consumer’s specs.
Companies may also use this performance to implement their environmental insurance policies that go above and past the minimal necessities. For instance, firms can resolve in the event that they need to implement their very own location-based restriction for ballast water alternate. An instance could be an organization deciding on its restricted zone for mid-ocean ballast water alternate previous to coming into the Great Lakes, which may very well be inside 250 nautical miles of shore relatively than the externally mandated 200 nautical miles restrict.
The environmental timeline additionally permits customers to see the place numerous environmental zones are and the way lengthy the ship is prone to stay within the zone the place vessels should adjust to laws or stringent firm tips. Color codes point out whether or not the standing of a given operational occasion is inexperienced: authorized, amber: authorized with circumstances, or purple: unlawful. If there are deviations from the passage plan, reminiscent of a delay in departure time, the timeline will routinely replace to precisely mirror real-time circumstances, thus making certain any discharges and emissions happen compliantly alongside the route.
This excessive visibility permits for significantly better voyage planning and monitoring and considerably reduces the danger of non-compliance with environmental laws.
ML: Why does OneOcean really feel it can be crucial for the maritime trade at giant to prioritize sustainability, and what steps do you hope the trade takes to maneuver in that path?
NB: The sheer quantity of maritime journey presently going down all over the world signifies that the trade has an infinite environmental impression. We know that air pollution from vessels within the skies and sea is dangerous to the planet on each a macro and micro degree. Fortunately, new applied sciences and practices are rising that may cut back environmental hurt from vessels and make the trade extra sustainable total. Implementing these new applied sciences will necessitate a want by all stakeholders to carry vessels and maritime shoreside services to the next customary of environmental efficiency by incentivizing power environment friendly and sustainable practices.
It is our hope that as new applied sciences emerge, ship homeowners and managers might be compelled by maritime authorities in any respect ranges to utilize them to enhance their environmental efficiency. We are happy by the CII and EEDI necessities from the IMO coming into impact in 2024 and it’s our hope that every one trade stakeholders will take a proactive strategy to complying with the brand new requirements by searching for to attain greater than the naked minimal compliance necessities. It can be our hope that these new laws will spur extra technological developments that might revolutionize the trade and radically cut back air pollution and waste produced by vessels.
ML: Can you discuss in regards to the challenges of waste administration and disposal laws within the maritime trade, and the way OneOcean addresses these challenges?
AP: One of the most typical challenges confronted by our trade is precisely figuring out land baselines, from which all maritime zones, together with territorial seas, contiguous zones and unique financial zones are measured. Many laws associated to waste administration and disposal solely come into power when a vessel is inside one in every of these zones, which makes the problem of figuring out the exact boundaries of zones all of the extra essential. Compounding the confusion, relying on distinctive topographical options, baselines usually are not at all times calculated the identical method and might often change. OneOcean’s EnviroManager incorporates the one consolidated supply of all land baselines, permitting customers to precisely decide boundaries and visualize the place laws are in impact.
In the voyage planning course of, our prospects additionally face the problem of consolidating a number of disparate sources of data to plan routes that take all navigational, industrial, security, compliance, and environmental elements into consideration. When necessities are evaluated individually, from siloed sources, and pieced collectively manually, it may be troublesome to entry the large image view wanted to plan for environment friendly, sustainable onboard practices.
As far as waste administration and disposal laws are involved, the easiest way to make sure these actions are carried out in a compliant method is thru appreciable planning earlier than the journey begins. High high quality planning depends on an enormous image view of a number of voyage components, the place information is dynamically linked, and interdependent elements could be evaluated collectively directly. Voyage planning ought to take operational particulars relating to discharges into consideration, and tie waste stream administration to different related variables reminiscent of climate, routing, and an in depth understanding of when and the place occasions can and may happen alongside a route.
Lack of planning usually ends in inaccurate infractions, which, in flip, lead to fines and different penalties. When operational occasions associated to waste disposal are deliberate with applicable regard for each laws and operational effectivity, the danger of defective discharges is far decreased.
ML: Relatedly, are you able to discuss OneOcean’s partnership with Green Marine, the environmental certification program for the North American marine trade? What do you assume is the significance of maritime firms self assessing their sustainability progress?
NB: OneOcean lately joined Green Marine as a accomplice as a result of we’re dedicated to driving sustainable practices and making our trade a greener one. Our software program portfolio of environmental options affirms this dedication and makes us well-suited to this position. We present larger consciousness to our prospects and provides them a sensible technique of embedding and deploying greater environmental requirements of their fleet operations.
We have been impressed by Green Marine’s environmental certification program, which unites stakeholders from throughout the trade, encouraging ship homeowners, port authorities, terminals, seaway firms and shipyards to go above and past exterior laws and cut back their environmental footprint and doc their progress via an annual self-assessment.
We consider that to ensure that there to be significant change in environmental practices within the maritime trade, firms must firstly try to enhance their very own inside requirements for the way they function. They should start by understanding how they’re performing to find out the place to focus effort to repeatedly enhance. Green Marine’s evaluation is an effective way to benchmark progress and convey consideration to areas of enchancment.
While a lot change might be externally mandated by the IMO, nations, flag states and port authorities within the coming years, firms might be higher geared up to enhance their environmental efficiency in a method that saves cash and improves effectivity in the event that they self-evaluate and decide their very own alternatives for enchancment and implement these proactively. Doing this methodically will permit them to find out when and the place investments could be made, plan operational adjustments and prepare crews in a well timed method.
ML: What would your recommendation be to firms within the maritime trade trying to start partaking with extra sustainable practices?
AP: To firstly perceive their present efficiency; how sustainable are your present practices? It is difficult to reply to the wants of the risky maritime market whereas additionally making certain excessive ranges of security, compliance, and environmental duty. We consider in using a scientific strategy that depends on top quality, built-in information to tell higher planning and real-time determination making.
This contains entry to logged information, detailed, vessel-specific info on earlier voyages, together with industrial necessities, passage plans, gas prices, discharges, and emissions traits, to call only a few. Once these information units are evaluated individually and in context to one another, firms can determine gaps, decide a technique, and plan for enchancment.
We additionally consider within the significance of shared entry to info by ship and shoreside groups, which allows greater high quality communication, improved efficacy, and decreased confusion.
Finally, we perceive how essential it’s for shoreside groups to have mechanisms in place to embed firm environmental requirements into onboard operations to make sure each day actions align with firm targets. Our options present the means to make this a actuality.
