Following the recent achievement at the prestigious Lloyd’s List Global Awards, GloBallast Partnerships have now been also shortlisted as a finalist for the HPH Trust Safer Cleaner Seas Award at the Lloyd’s List Asian Awards . The Awards showcase and reward the best talent and achievements in shipping over the last year in Asia and will be hosted at the Shangri-La Hotel, Singapore, on Thursday 20 October.
Tag Archives: ballast
GloBallast BWM pilot course in Panama
The International Maritime University of Panama (UMIP), in cooperation with the Maritime Authority of Panama (AMP), the Global Industry Alliance (GIA) and GEF-UNDP-IMO GloBallast Partnerships, conducted a pilot course on Ballast Water Management (BWM) Compliance Monitoring and Enforcement (CME). This pilot course will enable UMIP to deliver the course in the future to prepare Flag and Port State Control Officers in accordance with the provisions of the BWM Convention. More information can be found in AMP’s press release.
GloBallast Partnerships finalist for Lloyd’s List Global Award
After its recent success at the 8th International Waters Conference, the GloBallast Partnerships has been shortlisted as a finalist from the nominations for the prestigious Lloyd’s List Global Awards, in the category of Environment. The Lloyd’s List Global Awards showcase and reward the best talent and achievements in shipping over the last year. The awards are a vibrant celebration of the key players in global shipping and are recognised worldwide as a significant mark of success.
GloBallast Partnerships wins international award
A team from IMO’s Marine Environment Division has won the best Portfolio Solution Award in the 8th International Waters Conference (IWC8) organized by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) in Negombo, Sri Lanka (9-13 May). The award was given for the project with the best strategy for scaling-up investments aimed at addressing global environmental issues facing international waters, including the oceans. International waters is one of the five thematic portfolios of GEF funding, with around 90 related projects being featured at IWC8 and some 300 currently underway worldwide. IMO’s team presented the “Glo-X” partnerships model, based on the GloBallast Partnerships Programme. Glo-X is being used to accelerate legal, policy and institutional reforms in developing countries to implement the international conventions while, at the same time, leveraging private sector partnerships to accelerate R&D and technological innovations through forming global industry alliances and facilitating information exchange. GloBallast’s winning entry was selected from a large number of submissions made by GEF International Waters Projects and the award was based on oral presentations from the final eight nominees. A liveblog is available with some of the discussions of the conference.
Experts discuss implementing Ballast Water Management Convention
An IMO-GloBallast expert workshop dealing with risk assessment and decision support tools to support the implementation of the Ballast Water Management Convention is taking place at IMO Headquarters, London (25-26 April). 12 renowned international experts are discussing so-called “risk-based decision support systems” for improved implementation of the Convention. This comes as part of IMO’s efforts, under the GEF-UNDP-IMO GloBallast Partnerships Programme, to counter the threat to ecosystems by invasive species transported in the ballast water of ships.
The experts are drawn from the fields of information technology, risk assessment, marine ecosystems protection, maritime operations and Marine Electronic Information system integration. The workshop aims to provide a set of recommendations on the feasibility and requirements of such a decision-support system (with consideration for the capacity constraints in developing countries) and on how to apply such a system on a regional or global level.
Inauguration of 6th GEF-UNDP-IMO GloBallast R&D Forum
Some 140 participants at the 6th Global Environment Facility (GEF)-United Nations Development Program (UNDP)-IMO GloBallast R&D Forum and Exhibition on Ballast Water Management (16-18 March) under the banner “Ballast Water Management Convention – moving towards implementation” and will share knowledge and experience on treatment technologies and alternative methods and highlight current research. Compliance monitoring and enforcement including sampling and analysis will also be discussed.
The Forum, which brings together scientific experts and academia with the maritime industry and leaders in technology development for ships’ ballast water management, was launched by Marc Garneau, Minister of Transport, Canada. IMO’s Stefan Micallef, Director, Marine Environment Division, delivered an opening speech. Mr Micallef stated that the Ballast Water Management Convention needed to enter into force for effective implementation of its provisions. But he highlighted the huge amount of collaborative work which had been undertaken since the first GEF-UNDP-IMO GloBallast R&D forum 15 years ago, leading to a great deal of progress in the BWM field in terms of testing and approval of ballast water management systems, ballast water sampling and analysis, and the availability of ballast water management systems.
Ballast water system testers meet
The Global Ballast Water Test Organizations Network (GloBal TestNet) has been meeting in Montreal, Canada. GloBal TestNet launched its website and elected a new steering committee, while discussing further ways of collaboration amongst its members.
GloBal TestNet, which was formally established in 2013 with 16 signatories to a Memorandum of Understanding, aims to increase levels of standardization, transparency and openness in testing ballast water management systems. This is intended to benefit test facility clients as well as the end-users of ballast water treatment technologies: the ship owners who need cost-effective and environmentally-friendly systems to meet the requirements of the International Convention for the Control and Management of Ships’ Ballast Water and Sediments (BWM Convention), 2004, which is close to reaching entry into force requirements.
The formation of GloBal TestNet has been supported by the Global Industry Alliance (GIA) of the GEF-UNDP-IMO GloBallast Partnerships Programme. GloBal TestNet gathers organizations involved in the generation of data from land-based and/or shipboard testing for the certification of ballast water management systems, under the 2004 BWM Convention and relevant Guidelines or other test protocols.
