Roymar Ship Management Joins Green Marine Program

Green Marine, a program aimed at improving the shipping industry’s environmental footprint, announced that New York-based Roymar Ship Management has become its newest participant. Roymar, a wholly-owned subsidiary of TBS International, manages TBS' entire international fleet including 50 multipurpose vessels and bulk carriers.  With a client base of approximately 300 customers in 20 countries, TBS has developed its business around key trade routes between Latin America and China, Japan and South Korea, as well as ports in North America, Africa, the Caribbean, and the Middle East transporting steel products, project cargo, general and dry bulk cargo.

Roymar, based in Scarsdale, NY, becomes the 50th company and the first major U.S.-based shipowner to join Green Marine. According to Roymar president Ronald Tursi, "This is the next step in TBS and Roymar’s long-standing policy to environmentally improve our fleet and be at the forefront of environmental protection."

Green Marine is a bi-national, voluntary program that aims to improve participants' environmental performance beyond regulatory compliance by introducing best practices, reduction targets and/or new technologies to improve their record in areas such as invasive species, air emissions and greenhouse gases, cargo residues, oily waters, conflicts of use within Ports and environmental leadership.

Port authorities, shipowners and terminal operators participating in the program evaluate their performance each year on a one-to-five scale from regulatory compliance to achieving excellence. Their results are independently verified by a third party and shared publicly to demonstrate their environmental commitment.

Roymar Ship Management is already ISO 14001[1] certified (December 2008). Participating in Green Marine's Environmental Program is in line with TBS and Roymar's intention to find additional ways to substantiate their environmental efforts.

According to David Bolduc, Green Marine's executive director, "Green Marine's priorities and steps towards environmental improvement are fundamentally the same regardless of where companies are located within North America. Inviting Roymar Shipment Management to join the program seemed more than natural for the evolution of our program."

Initially founded by Canadian and U.S. companies in the Great Lakes region in 2008, Green Marine recently expanded into the West Coast and aims to implement its environmental program throughout North America.

This expansion brings an additional challenge to adapt the program to meet the marine industry's global needs while still taking into account local concerns, one of the key components of the program.
Green Marine has endorsements from high profile NGOs including Ducks Unlimited and the World Wildlife Fund and was recently recognized by the Mayors of the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative with a special resolution supporting the Green Marine initiative.  On the international stage, Green Marine was nominated for Green Shipping Initiative of the Year and was a finalist at the 2010 Sustainable Shipping Awards in London.

www.green-marine.org