The ship-owners, insurance, and finance providers lack understanding of recycling ships due to false information about the adverse environmental impacts and working conditions in recycling facilities, leading to ambiguity and confusion among them. Stakeholders face headline risk, ESG risks, and financial risks. To mitigate these risks GMS team has developed an award-winning program to provide an End-to-End solution for ensuring sustainable ship recycling. The SSORP steps in when the ship-owner decides to recycle a ship. The team of experts monitors the complete recycling process from the beginning until the completion of the recycling process. SSORP is very high on the value and low on the price.
GMS’s Sustainable Ship & Offshore Recycling Programme (SSORP) is the first and only Compliance Monitoring program to be successfully verified and validated by Lloyd’s Register Quality Assurance (LRQA), a major assurance and inspection company. LRQA experts audited the GMS SSORP in two stages, including an analysis of data on ships recycled from 2019 to 2021. It found that GMS’s recycling monitoring program provided its clients with a high degree of relevant data, completeness, consistency, accuracy, and transparency.
GMS provides services to prepare Inventory of Hazardous Materials (IHM) for the End-of-Life vessels. Our in-house team of IHM experts’ attends vessels before the recycling of vessels starts. The samples of potential hazardous materials are collected and sent to the laboratory for analysis. Based on the analysis, the IHM is prepared and given to the yard. IHM is essential for the recycling of vessels. It helps to identify and remove hazardous material from the ship.
SSORP adds an extra layer of enforcement, audits, and safety to ensure that post-delivery of vessels to yards, the sustainable standards are complied, and the units are recycled in a safe environmentally responsible way.
Dr. Nikos Mikelis, who is known as the Father of the HKC (Hong Kong Convention), is a Non-Executive Director at GMS. He guides ship owners on how to address the various compliance and regulatory requirements under GMS SSORP. Additionally, Dr. Anand Hiremath is a lead coordinator of GMS SSORP and Head of Research & Development Division at GMS. Dr. Anand is in-charge of project execution at ground level. Dr.Anand is a Class certified hazardous material expert as well as certifiedlead auditor for ISO 9k, 14k and 45k. Currently, Dr. Anand is a Course Director for the first of its kind (12-week long) Ship Recycling certification course offered by the Lloyd’s Maritime Academy London. In summary, GMS SSORP is executed by a highly qualified (with PhD) and well-trained in-house supervisory team of specialized experts in their respective fields
GMS SSORP is one of the fastest growing Sustainable Ship & Offshore Recycling Programs in the world. GMS SSORP has been vetted, accepted and recommended by leading ship owners (namely, Norwegian, Dutch, Taiwanese & Japanese owners). GMS SSORP is accepted as compliance monitoring and yard auditing team by Evergreen and Wan Hai. Our team has safely recycled more than 125+ vessels under GMS SSORP program and conducted 70 IHM surveys under this program in India & Turkey. The program is proud to confirm a track record of ZERO FATAL ACCIDENTS to date! In summary, BRAND AND HEADLINE RISK MANAGEMENT are ensured by selecting GMS SSORP service.
GMS is the ONLY Buyer in the world to provide one-stop, end-to-end solutions through a SSORP comprised of tasks such as preparing Inventory of Hazardous Materials (IHM), Ship Recycling Plans (SRP), and evaluating Ship Recycling Facility Plan (SRFP) as well as monitoring and Auditing/reporting the entire recycling process as per HKC guidelines. Permit to work system will be followed to implement Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) Management System. We check 281 HSE data points to ensure safe and environmentally friendly recycling. With weekly/monthly reports to ship owners documenting the recycling process, followed by a comprehensive report upon completion of the recycling process, we truly believe this is the BEST value driven program in the world today. It is also the only program that measures the ’Carbon Footprint’ of the recycled vessel. GMS SSORP is the most comprehensive, pragmatic and cost-effective SSORP in the world today.
GMS SSORP is the ONLY program that goes over and beyond the development and supervision of Responsible Ship Recycling by investing in R&D activities as well, for e.g., in collaboration with India’s world-renowned engineering institute i.e. Indian Institute of Technology (IIT Gandhinagar), GMS has supported the research and development of a safe and environmentally-friendly paint removal technology as well as providing paid internship to students to promote research on sustainable ship recycling. GMS has sponsored at NO COST, monthly training programs for yard workers at several ship recycling facilities in Alang, India; Gadani, Pakistan, and also Chattogram, Bangladesh. We have conducted 450+ free training sessions to workers till date and directly trained over 7500 recycling yard workers in India, Bangladesh and Pakistan. Additionally, in collaboration with a lACS-member classification society, GMS has initiated a high-calibre training program for the Indian ship recycling sector. Safety officers are educated on the various potential hazards on-board vessels, emergency preparedness and response plan generation, the importance of work permits, and training covering several other areas as well as hands-on experience with all the necessary equipment implemented at recycling yards.
Credible reporting and documentation systems with photographic evidences confirm safe recycling practices and watertight management of hazardous wastes ensures that ship owners will certainly avoid any potential issues in the future that maybe related to the recycling of their vessels in the past.
GMS is the only Buyer in the world to publish the industry’s first two books on ship recycling. Namely, “The Recycling of Ships” by Dr. Nikos Mikelis and “The Green Handbook: A Practical Checklist to Monitor the Safe and Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships” by Dr. Anand Hiremath - which highlights the breadth of procedures under GMS SSORP that assist both Ship and Yard Owners to recycle a vessel in an environmentally-friendly manner.
No other company in the world has put together such a comprehensive program dedicated to the development and execution of a quality Responsible Ship Recycling Program in a safe, pragmatic, and cost-effective manner
GMS SSORP integrates seamlessly with our SNP transaction. Our SNP Team offers a purchase price for the vessel along with a discounted price for our SSORP. This alleviates the need for sellers to spend endless resources in identifying, screening and negotiating with various vendors who may have to parachute in for a particular task —and ultimately struggle to synchronize the tasks of the third parties, with the activities at the yard where their vessel is being recycled—therefore minimizing the risk of defaults, delays and financial damages.
In recognition for its tireless efforts in upgrading global environmental, health and safety standards in the shipping industry, GMS is the FIRST and ONLY Buyer to receive the prestigious Green Shipping Award at Sea trade Maritime Awards Middle East, Indian Subcontinent and Africa 2018 and has been a finalist for environmental protection and CSR awards by the various recognized agencies in the maritime industry. Overall, GMS has won 37+ awards in different categories till date (including SSORP).Athens, Greece
SSORP commenced in 2012 and monitored Sustainable recycling of over 125 vessels of different types until 2023.
Conducted more than 450+ free training programs for the recycling facility workers at Alang, Chattogram, and Gadani.
GMS was the Winner of Seatrade Green Shipping Award 2018 (Abu Dhabi Ports, Zara Maritime, Bluewater Trade Winds Pvt Ltd, Monjasa, The Shipping Corporation of India were the Finalists)
SSORP is executed by a highly qualified in-house supervisory team of specialized experts:
Non-executive Director at GMS. As the former head of IMO's Ship recycling committee and the "Father" of the IMO's Hong Kong Convention for the Safe and Environmentally Sound Ship Recycling standards, Dr. Mikelis is an internationally renowned expert in ship recycling regulatory affairs and a regular speaker at global conferences.
Chief Sustainability Officer of GMS. Pursuant to his master’s degree in Environmental Engineering, Dr. Hiremath earned his Ph.D. in ship recycling from India’s prestigious IIT Bombay. His doctoral thesis was on the "Integrated Risk Assessment Framework for the Development of Best Practices in Ship Recycling’.
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