Over the past five years, social criteria in ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) have evolved from a sign of good corporate citizenship to a requirement to satisfy growing demands from governments, shareholders, investors, and the public for more transparency.
How do we address the ‘S’ in ESG? Here are some examples:
The social impact of lockdown restrictions on crew changes
Air travel and port restrictions triggered by the pandemic have resulted in a global crew-change crisis afflicting the shipping industry that has seen hard-working seafarers stuck on board vessels for extended periods far from home. And in many cases new crews unable to relieve them. The fatigue and mental-health issues also represent a significantly heightened risk for safety at sea.
DNV was appointed auditor of a CrewSafe programme, designed to establish safe and scalable ‘corridors’ for crew change amid COVID-19 crisis in Southeast Asia. CrewSafe aims to foster enhanced confidence in crew-change processes through careful quality control. Accreditation is awarded to facilities in crew-supply countries that successfully pass audits of medical, swabbing and quarantine/holding facilities.
DNV has already completed 15 audits at facilities located in Singapore, the Philippines, and India.
DNV’s digital survey tool empowers workers while promoting supply-chain transparency
In today’s age of rapid information exchange, brands and suppliers face ever stricter reporting requirements related to worker welfare. Reputational damage related to human rights risks in global supply chains can be severe, so issues need to be promptly investigated and resolved.
DNV’s Worker Voice remote survey tool serves as a supplement to traditional audit activities that are no longer enough to bridge the trust gap between physical products and the wealth of online information available to stakeholders and consumers.
Creating a secure channel to obtain information directly from workers, surveys are typically used to evaluate and report on key indicators of working conditions, for training or as a mechanism for grievance reporting and remediation.
The tool is quick and intuitive for workers and easy to administrate. DNV guides requestors/suppliers through a defined process from timeline planning to onboarding the workforce and the survey going live. DNV then tracks and monitors participation, finally closing the survey and analyzing the collected data to identify improvements, red flags and critical issues.
Outcomes can provide a crucial baseline for every site, sector or geography, enabling trends to be measured over time. The data can also be analyzed cumulatively with other evidence collected during a wider audit flow.
DNV’s Certification in Infection Prevention (CIP-M) programme
The safety of onboard personnel has never been more important, than now. To support industry during COVID-19, DNV stepped forward with the Certification in Infection Prevention-Maritime (CIP-M) programme and the My Care assessment framework.
Adapted from certification procedures originally developed for hospitals, the CIP-M certificate enables vessel owners and operators to demonstrate they have procedures in place for the proper prevention, control, and mitigation of infection to protect both customers and crews. My Care assessments can be used by businesses in all industry sectors.
The CIP is based on leading healthcare standards and guidelines, including those issued by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the World Health Organization, the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the ISO 9001 Quality Management System standard, among other related national and local guidelines.
Through annual surveys and company audits ashore, DNV verifies that a company maintains a detailed operational plan in compliance with the CIP-M requirements. And to support companies understanding of the fundamentals of infection prevention and control, DNV's Healthcare training programmes have been adapted by Maritime Academy for use in the maritime industry.
For a vessel owner or operator, the certification demonstrates an organization’s commitment to prevent, control and mitigate infection risks vulnerabilities. It also supports an organization's efforts to build trust and confidence amongst passengers, crewmembers, and other stakeholders. The CIP-M programme assists a company and its assets to be better prepared to address the challenges of both current and future emerging pathogens.
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