International Maritime Organization — 2024-02-28
Maritime and Ports
The Global Industry Alliance (GIA) for Marine Biosafety has outlined a full work programme for 2024, to support IMO’s key environmental objectives of protecting marine biodiversity and decarbonizing shipping.
The GIA is a public-private partnership initiative under the GloFouling Partnerships Project – a collaboration between the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and IMO. It aims to contribute to biodiversity protection and maritime decarbonization via improved biofouling management. The alliance has 14 members and one observer, including shipping and biofouling management companies, research institutions, classification societies and associations.
In the first of four meetings scheduled for 2024, GIA members outlined several activities to be completed this year (2024), including:
The next meeting was set for June 2024. The GIA welcomed its newest member, Nippon Paint Marine, an anti-fouling coatings manufacturer. Ms. Gladys Goh, company President, expressed her support for the GIA goal to protect the environment, stating: “The industry-public sector collaboration is very important in order to achieve the goal in the most effective way”.
In addition, members began to explore the potential options to continue with the alliance beyond the conclusion of the GloFouling Partnerships project in May 2025.