WALLEM SHIPMANAGEMENT LTD.
Wallem Shipmanagement Ltd. belong to the 101 year old Wallem Group, and have been ship managers and operators of repute for a number of years. We were among the first in our industry to receive "Safety & Environmental Protection (SEP)" certification from Det Norske Veritas (DNV), as early as 1992. This was followed by certification to the ISO 9002:1994 and later ISO 19001:2000 Quality Management Standards.
The decision to acquire ISO 14001 certification was based on our proven track record as environmentally conscious ship managers, and our future goal to implement an office and fleet-wide Environmental Management System (EMS) that conformed to an internationally accepted standard. We manage close to 100 merchant vessels of all types, ranging from oil/gas/chemical tankers and container ships to car carriers and reefer vessels trading worldwide, and remain acutely aware of our responsibility towards environmental conservation, both ashore and on the high seas. The Wallem Safety, Health, Environmental and Quality Policy applies to all our employees in equal measure, without exception. It is with this intention that we acquired ISO 14001 certification in 2002, and went one step further in 2003, becoming the first ship managers to acquire OHSAS 18001 certification, for Occupational Health & Safety Management.
Our compliance with the ISO 14001 standard has involved a substantial investment in training; all executive staff in this office have attended environmental awareness courses held by the Business & Environmental Council (BEC) Hong Kong, and four executives have also successfully completed IEMA approval EMS Lead Auditor courses. We have interacted with the Hong Kong Govt. EPD from the outset, to learn more about available educational literature to boost environmental awareness among our staff. A course on Loss Prevention and Environmental awareness is also held regularly at out Maritime Training Centre in India, and such training is regularly imparted to our shipboard staff by Marine Training superintendents sailing within our fleet.
We remain committed to fulfillment of the standards set by ISO 14001: 1996, with special emphasis on the "continual improvement" that is required to be regularly demonstrated, in shipboard & office activities.
Our commitment is further reinforced by the fact that Environmental certification to ISO 14001 is relatively new to the shipping industry, and it falls upon larger ship managers such as ourselves and a few contemporaries, to take the lead in such compliance. As yet, this industry has not reacted to such certification with any commercial incentive (uncertified operators remain just as competitive as competitive as certified ones), and it is purely a unilateral process, with no financial gain. Your efforts in giving this standard more recognition will undoubtedly go a long way in establishing the importance (and necessity) of environmental awareness in Hong Kong and overseas.
Capt. Nishit Kapoor
Marine Superintendent
Wallem Shipmanagement Ltd.
