The new EU regulation will see a number of measures introduced to ensure that vessels are sustainably and responsibly recycled at the end of their lifecycle. The primary requirements of the regulation for ship owners, which is scheduled to enter into force at the end of the year, are the establishment of an IHM for all EU flagged ships and for all vessels which call at ports within the EU. The regulation is also intended to promote the ratification of the Hong Kong Convention as a global solution to the environmental impact of ship breaking.
With the new tool the entire volume of ship component data, which are required to be maintained and updated through its entire lifetime, can be comprehensively gathered and processed. From the central web based data repository all of the various parties who need access and are involved in the process of preparation, certification and maintenance of IHM data, such as shipowners, shipyards, suppliers, hazmat experts, class societies and recyclers, can, using the IGS, work in parallel on the same platform. This ensures that the IHM process is transparent, not only to the regulators but to the ship owners, ship yards, and recycler. It gives a real-time overview of individual vessels and the entire fleet under management, while allowing for the smart and efficient management of all the required documentation, e.g. Material Declarations, Supplier Declarations of Conformity and IHM Documents.
Gerhard Aulbert, GL`s Head of Global Practice Ship Recycling, said: "This new legislation from the EU has the potential to initiate a change that will take ship recycling standards to the next level, and sets a global benchmark for the ship recycling industry. We have developed the IGS as a smart tool for generating documents which comply with the regulations in the most transparent and easy manner possible. It facilitates communication between the various parties and will support owners in maintaining high quality ships and a clean working environment on board, while also enabling ship recycling facilities to benefit from comprehensive IHMs for preparing to recycle vessels and monitoring of hazardous materials on board of ships."