By using third parties to monitor and advise, owners can ensure their vessels are recycled in compliance with the rules and eliminate potential reputational risk
One of these third parties, Sea Sentinels, is now offering its services at yards in Norway, Belgium, Spain and other European countries.
Sea Sentinels chief executive Rakesh Bhargava said that simply selecting an approved yard is not sufficient for owners to achieve compliance due to regulatory complexity, and onsite supervision is needed to enforce the requirements – mirroring a shipbuilding project in reverse.
“Enforcement still remains a major challenge today. As an independent provider, Sea Sentinels addresses the core problem that is ‘on-the-ground’ enforcement and compliance so that best practice is observed,” he explained.
He added, “We strongly believe that having a full time independent, experienced and strong site presence is a key contributor to safe and environmentally friendly recycling operations in compliance with both regulations and owner policies.
“Our teams like to get their hands dirty and believe in active engagement at the worker level,” said Mr Bhargava.
According to the company, Sea Sentinels boasts a track record of zero incidents from sustainable recycling projects for international owners on both ships and offshore rigs at yards in major scrapping locations including Turkey, China (now closed) and India as it expands its supervision activities in Europe.
The Singapore-based company, with offices and representations in Norway, Malaysia, China, Japan, Indonesia, India and Turkey, provides comprehensive services for ships and offshore units based on three main business pillars – sustainable recycling, inventory of hazardous materials and its maintenance and lay-up services.
As part of its consultancy role, the company performs benchmarking and audits for selecting an appropriate ship recycling facility, which Mr Bhargava said, “there is not much awareness or domain knowledge among most owners for carrying out due diligence towards yard selection”.
During the recycling process, Sea Sentinels deploys a specialist supervision team on site to monitor activity so HSE requirements are fulfilled and provides continuous reporting – such as documenting hazardous waste disposal – so final certification can be gained to secure regulatory compliance.
“Given the regulatory requirements, this is a complicated and exhaustive process that simply cannot be left to chance if owners want to demonstrate their credibility to stakeholders and minimise their ESG risk exposure,” said Mr Bhargava.
Recycling and corporate risk feature in the live Tanker Shipping & Trade Conference, Awards & Exhibition in Athens 2-3 November 2021. Register your interest here and receive alerts for future events and access to the webinar library.
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