Odfjell handles some of the world’s most hazardous liquids, and we transport them through some of the world’s most vital and fragile environments: the oceans. Our terminals store products close to people’s homes and local communities.
Emissions, soil contamination, or water pollution can all have the potential to adversely impact people and ecosystems. It is imperative, for the sake of people and businesses, that we take care of the environment in which we operate. Climate risk affects all businesses – but it also creates many opportunities.
Climate change poses a severe threat to healthy market dynamics. Failing to live up to expectations, failing to comply with regulations, and failing to operate in a sustainable way present significant risks to trade, locally and globally.
Any business is dependent on a well-functioning society and sound economic growth. That is why Odfjell makes climate risk assessment intrinsic to the work of management and the Board of Directors.
We believe that even small changes can make a big difference – for people and for the planet. But we also realize that we cannot do everything. Our efforts and actions directly affect our business, so we focus on areas where we can have a real impact.
Our focus areas
- The safety of our people
- A profitable and sustainable business
- Good governance and compliance
- Local communities
- The environment
The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were launched in 2015. To achieve the goals by 2030, we are now in a decade of action. Our Sustainability Strategy builds on the United Nations Global Compact’s ten principles. We will do what we can to contribute to the achievement of the SDGs, and report our actions and initiatives within the international framework and standards.
Odfjell’s overall targets embrace ambitious measures for the Company’s efforts and impact on Environment, Governance and Compliance. This is diligent work, to be continuously improved – we can always do better.
To guide our work, Odfjell has committed to the ten United Nations’ (UN) Global Compact Principles, the Sustainable Ocean Principles and a set of targets based on a campaign initiated by the Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise (NHO) on UN's 17 Sustainability Development Goals (SDGs). Odfjell is also a member of the ‘Getting to Zero’ coalition, a global alliance working to operate zero-emission vessels on deep-sea trades by 2030.
The UN Global Compact is a strategic policy initiative for businesses that are committed to aligning their strategy and operations by ten universally accepted principles in the areas of human rights, labour, the environment and anti-corruption. This initiative sets a framework for the implementation of the principles and thereby facilitates reporting of progress with an annually published ‘Communication on Progress’.
We also report emissions to the EU MRV, the IMO DCS, the CDP, and the Poseidon Principles. We annually present Communication of Progress to the UN Global Compact (available on the end of this page) and also report sustainability data to EcoVadis.
To learn more about some of Odfjell’s sustainability initiatives, see keynote presentation by CEO Kristian Mørch (2018):
