Kerkyra (Corfu)

How often does one hear of environmental initiatives that get no further then the conference hall or the committee room? How many times have you heard of initiatives to improve the industry’s image but have seen nothing happen? How easy is it to make shipping industry promises to support local communities close to ports and terminals but then to do nothing?

One of INTERTANKO’s members came up with a positive response to all three questions when some of the men on board the chemical/products tanker Alios Hermes decided that they wanted to do something to clean up the beach at Igoumenitsa in north-west Greece, while their ship was discharging cargo at the nearby BP terminal.

The ship’s Master, Second Officer, Third Engineer and Deck Cadet joined forces with two locals working in Igoumenitsa and formed a working party. They met up three times altogether, and collected about two cubic metres of garbage (enough to fill up nine big plastic bags) from a one kilometre stretch of the local beach. What did they find? Plastics, cans, cigarette butts, bottles of all shapes and sizes and other materials – all of which were recyclable. This was all taken away and disposed of by the municipality.

The motivation of these men was threefold. “First, The crew couldn’t stand the situation on this beach and wanted to send a message to local society that environmental initiatives can improve the quality of life in their own town. They consider the ports that they often visit as their responsibility,” says Kyla Shipping’s Fleet Manager John Skourtis.

Secondly, these men also wanted to motivate their colleagues working on the rest of the Alios fleet as well as those ashore at Kyla Shipping. The Alios Hermes has been involved with other similar environmental initiatives – including another beach-cleaning that took place in June 2007 in Kerkyra (Corfu). Moreover the company has recently participated in a national afforestation programme, planting more than 300 trees on Panion Mountain in Eastern Attica, Greece.

Kyla invites suggestions from its staff for the best safety and/or environmental suggestion. It also performs energy audits on board its ships and uses the information to establish energy saving plans. The third motivation is the environmental training received by Kyla’s officers which has given them the desire to achieve excellence in environmental performance.

Kyla Shipping is a member of the Hellenic Marine Environment Protection Association (Helmepa) whose example has inspired hundreds of young people to go out and clean up the beaches, and which has spawned numerous ‘Mepas’ all over the world – the latest of which is North America’s Namepa. Helmepa was founded by George Livanos. Kyla’s Managing Director Nick Livanos preserves and enhances the family tradition on the environmental protection.

Kyla has enthusiastically empbraced the HELMEPA/UN United Nations Environment Programme/ Mediterranean Action Plan (UNEPMAP), part of which is a regional strategy to keep Mediterranean Sea clean by monitoring marine litter in the sea. This can be achieved through visual observations by navigating officers on vessels trading in the Mediterranean – making every ship a potential environmental patrol. The observations will be recorded on a specific form already provided by HELMEPA (Hellenic Marine Environment Protection Association) and will be sent to HELMEPA. While participation is on a voluntary basis, Kyla Shipping has made it mandatory throughout its fleet since the majority of its ships trade within the Mediterranean. The first reports are already going in to HELMEPA.

It is this personal motivation of individuals, this desire for excellence, which can set such a great example for others in our industry to follow. It also demonstrates a wonderful example to those outside our industry.

It is only through individuals finding such motivation to raise the bar and to push themselves towards more ambitious goals, that others will be inspired to follow.