Berge Bulk joins IMPA SAVE in the fight against plastic

A warm welcome to our 29th IMPA SAVE Pledger, Berge Bulk, one of the world’s leading independent dry bulk ship owners, with an outstanding reputation for the safe, efficient, and sustainable delivery of commodities around the world.

Berge Bulk own, operate, and manage a fleet of 85 vessels – which equates to over 14.5 million deadweight tonnes (DWT). The fleet ranges from handy-size to cape-size to some of the largest vessels ever built – serving the major miners, steel mills and charterers of the world. Berge Bulk is committed to reducing its waste footprint, building a waste-conscious culture among colleagues, and investing in organisations that are creating innovative, sustainable waste management solutions.

Speaking to Michael Blanding, Sustainability and Impact Investment Leader at Berge Bulk, IMPA SAVE learned:

Last year (2020) Berge Bulk announced a commitment to achieve 25% reduction in average plastic waste per ship by 2021 (vs. 2017 baseline). We are well on track to achieve this. In 2019, we launched a project to install enhanced water purification units on board our ships in an effort to reduce dependency on plastic bottles. Six purification units were installed on each vessel: engine room, bridge, mess room, and on three decks in accommodation. By the end of 2020, the roll-out was complete. 390 water purification units had been installed fleetwide, and over 2,000 reusable stainless steel drinking bottles were distributed to our crew. The results of this effort have been encouraging. Before the start of this initiative, the average monthly consumption for our fleet was 794 plastic water bottles/vessel/month. By the end of December, 2020, this number had come down significantly to only 45 plastic bottles/vessel/month. This represents a 94% reduction in plastic water bottle waste over the course of this campaign. Since the beginning of this initiative, we have avoided 715,719 plastic water bottles fleetwide.

This update brings our reach at SAVE so far to 6232 vessels representing 11.33% of the global fleet. We are very happy to have Berge Bulk onboard IMPA SAVE!