As we plan the third Poseidon Challenge Day on April 22, 2008 in Istanbul, during INTERTANKO’s Istanbul Tanker Event 20th-23rd April 2008, we are looking forward to the future as well as back at the past. We look back to the birth of the Poseidon Challenge at INTERTANKO’s Athens Tanker Event in 2005, and to the first two Poseidon Challenge Days which took place in Singapore in 2006 and in Houston in 2007.

Athens saw the gathering of influential and authoritative people from right across the shipping industry who were wanting to interact and work together, not only to energise their particular sector, but to work together with other sectors to raise even further the bar of safety and environmental standards. The Athens meeting also saw the realisation that this energy and commitment should be harnessed.

Singapore saw the first Poseidon Challenge Day. Top executives from fifteen links in the chain of responsibility were present, with authority from their sector to support the aims and ideals of the Poseidon Challenge and to make realisable commitments to continuous improvement. They were brought together by the desire to make our industry the industry that we want it to be.

Houston saw the second Poseidon Challenge Day. There were new commitments. But just as important were updates on commitments made in Singapore – targets hit, goals achieved.

Out of the Houston meeting came also the strong desire among those present that Poseidon Challenge should cover all shipping sectors. Last but not least came the desire for an Award to recognise outstanding accomplishments in continuous improvement in the martime industry.

Istanbul – third Poseidon Challenge Day. There will be commitments and updates. The day involves a move to embrace the human element as key to achieving Poseidon Challenge’s three zero goals – zero fatalities, zero pollution, zero detentions – throughout the shipping industry.

There will be an address from the head of the Maritime Faculty of Istanbul’s Technical University – and from one of the students. And there will also be the presentation of the first Poseidon Challenge Award to the winner out of fifteen worthy nominations.

And this year there will be a separate ‘tool-box’ session to show how to introduce continuous improvement into a company.

The Poseidon Challenge is growing and evolving. But what has not changed is the desire to show that people at the highest level in the shipping industry Poseidon Challenge reaches out of the conference hall and into the shipping industry. It inspires and becomes a way of thinking and behaving believe that continuous improvement and cooperation between sectors are of the utmost importance, and that we can achieve these by focusing on the human element.

The Poseidon Challenge Day is not just another industry conference where shipping people talk at each other all day, but have little to show for it one month or one year later.

Poseidon Challenge reaches out of the conference hall and into the shipping industry. It inspires and becomes a way of thinking and behaving.

The Poseidon Challenge Award

It involves soliciting people’s leadership to make a sincere commitment to take continuous improvement to the next performance level, both in their organisation and also in the work going on between shipping industry sectors – and then revisiting these commitments a year or two later to see how practice measures up to theory.

It involves taking our future in our hands with a serious commitment to continuous improvement, and striving to achieve the three zero goals of zero fatalities, zero pollution, zero detentions.

It involves a strategy to take tangible forward steps towards these zero goals, and to work together with different industry sectors to achieve practical and effective action.

It involves an encouragement to all participants in the Chain of Responsibility to work together in a sustained commitment to continuous improvement.

It involves proactive, voluntary efforts to set our own high standards for performance rather than waiting for governmental or environmental “policemen” to do it for us. Further, it recognises that every link in the Chain of Responsibility is vital and must perform to the same high standard for the zero goals to be achieved.

Poseidon Challenge now has its own website www.poseidonchallenge.com. Keep in touch. Embrace what Poseidon Challenge stands for. Work towards continuous improvement. Strive for the zero goals.