Earth Day

At Ocean, respect of the environment is part of our corporate values and we firmly believe that no business objective should be pursued to the detriment of the environment. This is why we strive daily to apply the best practices in the industry and offer the assurance of a safe and environmentally friendly service.

As of December 2018, a program for the submission of health, safety and environmental initiatives by employees in all our operating sectors has been in place. The objective behind the HSE initiatives is to promote and develop good practices and initiatives that foster continuous improvement in the health, safety and security of our employees and the protection of our environment (HSE) through the implementation of a formal process for valuing and promoting initiatives in our workplace. Since the implementation of the program, douzens of environmental actions have been put in place to improve some of our operating processes.

In recent months, we began using a high-pressure water jet blasting robot for ship repairs. This equipment, which is on the cutting edge of technology, stands out for its great usefulness and also for its environmental aspect. In fact, the water used for blasting is recovered, filtered and then reused. No residue is left on the floor of the operating site and the noise associated with blasting operations is considerably reduced.

In 2019, for our harbour towing activities, we reduced our CO2 emissions by more than 2% compared to the previous year and by 23% since 2014. These emission reductions are possible as a result of these improvements:

• Identifying optimal speed versus fuel consumption and reducing speed during transfers.
• The addition of an additive to optimize the energy supplied for each litre of fuel.
• A specific diagnosis on trailers in order to validate the optimizations and improvements that optimize fuel consumption.
• A more efficient positioning of the fleet with the dispatch service.

We have also begun a process to compensate for the emissions of some of the vehicles at our Isle-aux-Coudres shipyard by planting trees in the Charlevoix biosphere.

One of our great pride at Ocean is also to be a founding member of the Green Marine, an environmental certification program for the North American marine industry. The Green Marine is one of the first voluntary initiatives in the world to take tangible steps towards a better understanding, reduction and mitigation of the impacts of underwater noise on marine mammals and its expertise is widely coveted.

We strive to become better and better by implementing initiatives that may seem simple, but when added together, make a real difference.

• Elimination of single-use water bottles on operating sites.
• Converting the lighting in the large workshop at the Isle-aux-Coudres shipyard to LED, resulting in a 64% reduction in associated energy consumption.
• Implementation of an environment committee made up of members of management, executives and employees to promote continuous environmental improvement.
• Recovery of batteries and computer equipment in the workplace.

Ocean Group employees are our greatest strength. Their rigour and involvement in the HSE initiatives program allow us to maintain high performance statistics, but above all to protect our team, our customers and the environment.