Mitsui takes 'green' programme a step further

A SECOND environmental report has just been published by Mitsui OSK Lines, according to MOL president, Kunio Suzuki. This follows a year after the first report by the line during which time, Suzuki said, MOL has been “strengthening its internal environmental protection activities”, following the 2000 report’s guidelines. The 2001 report details the achievements to date. “It includes two new items, an outline of the environmental management system introduced this April and the environmental accounting for the fiscal year 2000,” he said. Although MOL’s environmental protection activities are founded on the safe operation of its vessels, according to Suzuki, it also recognises “the burden it places on the environment” through its daily business activities. The report details what it is doing to reduce this “burden”. The most direct of these measures include regulations for the prevention of marine pollution and prevention of oil pollution at sea; a shipboard waste management system; and a focus on ballast water and anti-fouling paints. Other measures are prevention of air pollution; and a response to global warming, acid rain and ozone layer depletion. The driving force behind this marine environmental protection programme is Japan’s Ministry of the Environment.