35 major shipping companies have now officially joined the IMPA SAVE movement for drastically reducing single-use plastic drinking water bottles onboard their owned or managed vessels, and hundreds of others are slowly being influenced to change the status quo. Read on for a general update on progress, next milestones and important dates to save in your diary for 2022!

• 35 major shipping companies have now joined IMPA SAVE, with many others being influenced to change the status quo.
• Strong partnerships and collaboration remain at the heart of SAVE, and latest one with BIMCO raises awareness of IMPA SAVE’s important mission.
• Future milestones are still in discussion and, with IMPA London just around the corner, there has never been a better chance to get together and discuss the next direction SAVE should take.

The ‘Getting to Zero’ quest continues

With the recent joining of shipowner Awilco this spring, the first IMPA SAVE milestone – Getting to Zero – has now brought together just under 8000 vessels (representing 13% of the global fleet) committed to considerably eliminate plastic drinking water bottles in the next three years. And this is just the official commitment. Word on the street is that many other ship-owners and -managers are increasingly being influenced to make sustainable swaps, and we are being told by many – anecdotally – that an overall decrease in the purchase and supply of plastic water bottles can be now seen in our industry. There are already several companies that have installed freshwater generators onboard their entire fleet and that only keep a small amount onboard now for regulatory and health and safety reasons. Many others have already covered more than 50% of their fleet. The action needle is moving and patience is key.

On our side within the SAVE team, the job remains to keep pushing industry leaders, to continue raising awareness and to offer companies viable financially-sound sustainable alternatives.

Live events are back and moving the sustainability needle is at the top of the agenda

We started with IMPA Hamburg back in May where IMPA’s Head of Sustainability covered for the German shipping community the breadth of work that IMPA does around sustainability in shipping. This included coverage of the IMPA ACT Responsible Business Conduct initiative, the new IMPA-GBB programme for maritime suppliers and of course, IMPA SAVE. Members of our team also had the opportunity to speak about our initiatives earlier this year in Cyprus during GenPro’s Green Day Sustainability Seminar and in Greece during Posidonia. Next stops? IMPA London on 13-14 September, IMPA Greece on 27 September and IMPA Singapore on 22-23 November. While the two latter ones will feature IMPA SAVE on the main agenda alongside other initiatives and important topics, talks are being had at the moment to ensure that the IMPA London event will bring forward an IMPA SAVE Conference looking at various options for sustainable procurement and supply chain management, case studies, and more! It is going to be a busy year and we are looking forward to finally be able to chat in person with everyone in the IMPA network and hopefully garner even more awareness and interest in our sustainability initiatives.

Building partnerships for a better tomorrow

We are stronger together and know that very little gets done without collaborative work and partnerships. Earlier this year, our Special Ambassador for Sustainability and Chair of IMPA SAVE Mikael Karlsson (Head of Business Development, Northern Marine Group Limited) has joined BIMCO as an industry expert, with the latter keen to support our initiative for reducing plastic onboard vessels. BIMCO’s network is immense and our working group is excited to see IMPA SAVE gain more exposure through this newly-established partnership.

Next IMPA SAVE milestones

There is talk about a new pledge for maritime suppliers, and the invitation for our community of suppliers and manufacturers to get in touch with us on what they think the next IMPA SAVE pledge should be remains open. We are also looking at beginning work around the management of waste in ports around the world, as we know port reception facilities on land are in the majority of times inadequate. The Marine Stores Guide is working hard around waste reduction with the next edition of the leading reference for maritime purchasing and supply chain professionals introducing green products as alternatives to the usual options. No matter what our next milestone will be, we will definitely keep you, our readers, in the loop.