SEB joins standard for responsible ship recycling

During the leading maritime NOR-shipping event in Oslo on May 30th 2017 ABN AMRO, ING and NIBC presented the Responsible Ship Recycling Standards (RSRS) for ship financing. SEB becomes the twelfth member of this initiative.

Recycling of a ship at the end of its lifecycle poses the largest social and environmental risk challenges for the industry. The RSRS aim to promote responsible ship recycling and minimise the dangers associated with hazardous materials on board of ships.

“We want to increase awareness of the environmental and social risks associated with recycling of ships. By joining RSRS we want to demonstrate that we are dedicated to promoting responsible handling of ships throughout their lifetime. Scandinavian banks have traditionally been strong within ship financing and by joining together we achieve greater leverage to work towards better sustainability standards in the global shipping industry”, says Hans Christian Kjelsrud, Global Head of Shipping Coverage at SEB.

RSRS is aligned with the 2010 Hong Kong Convention. This convention, which is still to be formally ratified, establishes a minimum standard for recycling of ships. In addition, the EU has formulated EU Ship Recycling Regulation (EU SRR) that apply to all vessels sailing under one of the EU Member States’ flags.

“To a great extent these are requirements which our customers already meet and standards that we have complied with over many years. Joining RSRS is more a formalising of what we did previously. But it also means that we will start to work more actively on these issues together with the other banks. We often participate in loan syndicates where together we can put pressure on customers to commit to complying with standards that are in the loan terms,” says Hans Christian Kjelsrud.

The other banks that are part of the RSRS initiative are ABN AMRO, Danske Bank, DNB, Eksportkreditt, Hamburg Commercial Bank, ING, KfW IPEX-Bank, NIBC, Nordea, Sparebank SR-Bank and Sparebanken Vest.

SEB previously signed the Poseidon Principles, a global bank initiative to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases from shipping. The Principles are consistent with the International Maritime Organisation’s ambition that by 2050 carbon dioxide emissions from shipping shall be reduced by 50% compared with the base year 2008.

Source: SEB