Initiatives lay groundwork for growth in 2022

With a membership that comprises over 700 companies in 65 countries, IMCA’s work and voice carries a long way. Safety and efficiency are core values in our mission to improve performance in the marine contracting industry.

Our Covid-related work included lobbying in 2021 at IMO to help alleviate the global crew-change crisis. And our DDMC and the Diving Medical Advisory Committee continued to provide guidance for the management of Covid offshore.

IMCA’s 2021 strategic review resulted in a five-point plan highlighting the importance of: the stewardship of our technical library of standards and guidance; expanding our reach into offshore wind and other marine energy sectors; broadening our environmental sustainability scope; collaborating with industry partners; and continuing to promote standardisation.

We maintain a five-year review cycle of our technical library.

Meanwhile, the offshore wind energy market represents a significant growth opportunity. We look forward to helping find a sustainable risk model where developers and contractors are aligned with common goals to efficiently accelerate the energy transition.

“We are committed to avoiding duplication of standards in the international wind market”

For the last 10 years our Marine Renewable Energy Committee has addressed offshore wind construction. IMCA’s ambition is to internationalise this expertise as the markets and Asia and North America develop. We have collaboration agreements with G+, the global offshore wind health and safety organisation, seven other wind organisations, and are similarly involved with key USA stakeholders.

IMCA is committed to avoiding duplication of standards in the international wind market. 2021 saw the development of the industry standard for accredited diving system inspectors – through collaboration with IOGP – aimed at reducing duplication and unnecessary costs by ensuring a recognised standard of audits across the operator community.

Within our competence and training orbit, IMCA’s accreditation programme was expanded with the mandatory introduction of our CPD scheme for offshore diving supervisors. Our CPD strategy was extended to DPOs and key DP personnel in collaboration with the Nautical Institute, and our DP Practitioner Accreditation scheme continues to grow.

As part of our IT advances, IMCA added to our website a verification portal for checking the validity of certificates issued by IMCA over many years for our accreditation schemes. A digital certification process has also been launched.

In 2021 we published our Code of Practice for Environmental Sustainability, setting the bar of expectations for our industry in managing key environmental and climate interactions. Next, IMCA will launch an online environmental sustainability self-assessment tool for members to benchmark their strategies and progress in the years ahead.

At IMO, we made progress on the Industrial Personnel Code, the autonomous ship initiative, the IMO Diving Code, and the Marine Environment Protection Committee – where we are collecting members’ input on fuel consumption to support our proposals on future KPIs of vessel emission performance.