During a ceremony held today in Muggiano (La Spezia), Rina (Registro Italiano Navale, an Italian ship classification society) awarded the Muggiano yard with “Environmental Protection” certification under ISO 14001, the most recent and advanced environmental management standard.
The yard in Riva Trigoso (Genoa), which together with Muggiano forms Fincantieri’s specialist naval shipbuilding centre, is expected to be certified within the next month.
The ceremony was attended for RINA by Roberto Cazzulo, Chief Regulatory Affairs Officer and, for Fincantieri, by Ferdinando Tognini, Manager of the Riva Trigoso and Muggiano shipyards, Alessandro Concialini, Naval Vessel Business Unit Deputy Director, Giovanni Andreani, Head of Safety, and Giovanni Romano, Executive Senior Vice President Mega Yachts.
In order to qualify for ISO 14001 certification, applicants must, amongst other things, draw up programs to improve their systems that manage environmental aspects and the related impacts, and they must introduce internal guidelines and controls to regulate and monitor activities from an environmental perspective.
This standard is intended to provide the bases of an effective environmental management system, and one of its greatest strengths is the credibility derived from its international recognition. ISO 14001 certification is not at present mandatory but voluntary, and is therefore a highly discriminating factor for identifying best practice businesses. It is also becoming mandatory to have this certification in order to participate in bids called by Italy’s military forces (in fact, it is required by the Italian Navy and Finance Police) and in order to operate in important specialized segments of the marine market – particularly the offshore one – and in marine systems and components.
This certification sits side by side with “Towards Zero Accidents”, another very important project for Fincantieri launched in 2011, which aims to achieve a standard of excellence needed to reduce workplace injuries to a natural minimum. This initiative has important implications not only ethically, by changing corporate culture concerning safety at work, but also economically, as an element of distinction, and legally, since compliance with certification standards demonstrates the presence and application of an organizational model intended to reduce risks.
As evidence of the progress made, year one of this project’s implementation has seen the number of hours of absence due to accidents fall by 26%, and the number of compensated injuries decrease by 36%, compared with a national statistic of -25 % for similar projects during their first year (figures published by INAIL, Italy’s national workplace accident insurance institution) and compared with a 6% reduction in accidents reported by Fincantieri in 2011.
Giuseppe Bono, CEO of Fincantieri, said: “Today’s milestone is an important step in the process of evolution that sees Fincantieri committed to safety and the environment. We believe that in addition to being key factors for those who work in surroundings like ours, these issues have a positive impact on the management of processes, on cost and injury reduction, and on the quality of corporate life.” Bono continued: “All this contributes significantly to making Fincantieri more competitive, a key factor for defending our growth and overall productive fabric, including our allied industries, at a difficult time like the present, and that’s why we intend to gradually extend the results achieved at the Muggiano yard to all the Group’s other yards”.
