The Vision of Chris Karman

“The land comes to a premium, whereas offshore, there is plenty of room. However, we should treat the sea with care to make sure it doesn’t come to a premium in the future as well”, states Chris Karman, manager business development at IMARES (Institute for Marine Resources and Ecosystem Studies). IMARES is part of Wageningen UR (University and Research Centre) and has offices in Den Helder, IJmuiden and Yerseke. The institute provides scientific support that is necessary for developing policies and innovations in respect of the marine environment, fishery activities, aquaculture and the maritime industry.

Karman, based in Den Helder, says: “Our locations are very region-orientated and deal with issues that are important for the region they are based. The colleagues in Yerseke, for example, conduct shellfish and delta research, IJmuiden is specialised in fishery research and we in Den Helder do research for the private maritime and offshore industry.” IMARES was established in 2006 when the fishery institute RIVO, Alterra Texel and TNO Ecological Research were joined together to form one research institute.

And the institute is doing well, according to Karman: “We have doubled in size since 2006. Starting out with 120 people, we now employ 240 people. The essence of our vision is that sustainable management of the sea is only possible if there is ecological knowledge of the sea. Also, we get more and more knowledgeable about the maritime and offshore industry, because we want to anticipate on the needs from the industry in regard to the sea. The Arctic and deep sea are the hot items at the moment, as is wind energy. For example, IMARES helps the government if they want to give out licenses for wind farms and develop policy plans. We invest a lot to make sure our knowledge is up to date and we can inform the industry and the government with our knowledge. 50% of our work involves policy support and the other 50% can be divided into  25% contract research for government and companies and 25% strategic research for RTD programmes. Since the beginning of this year, we have bundled our work for the maritime industry in a new maritime department, so we will be able to synchronize our work even better with the needs of maritime industry.”

Impact on the environment

A current topic is ‘Topsector Water’, one of the nine top industries that the Dutch government identified as industries that the Netherlands excel in and therefore pays special attention to. Within this top sector, there is a research agenda that involves the impact of the industry on the environment. Karman: “The industry is well aware of the fact that it needs to deal with the environment in an appropriate way. In the past, the government imposed regulations on the industry; nowadays the industry has self-regulation, which means it has a say about the regulations and is encouraged to think along with the government about policies and regulations. In shipping, the environmental policy is to reduce emissions, as harbours struggle with air pollution. However, reduction of the highest emission does not necessarily mean the best improvement for the environment. Our advise is: do not only look at the emission itself, but also at the impact of your actions on the environment and prioritise referring to the disturbances you cause. An example is a research project we did for a ship owner who sails in the Wadden Sea. It turned out that the biggest disturbance for the environment was caused by the actual presence of the ships, not their emissions. The solution was to sail less frequent with larger ships instead of sailing more often with smaller ships. The disturbance of the environment depends on the specific aspects that make an area vulnerable.”

Building with nature

IMARES’ vision is clear: “With every project, take the impact on the ecosystem into consideration right from the start, build with nature instead of against it”, Karman explains. “The maritime industry is an industry of engineers and the environment mostly doesn’t come first for them. To us, it is important to create awareness for the engineers’ point of view as well as the biologists’ the point of view. Several companies already incorporated this in their conduct of business. Working with the environment in mind can give a business and an industry an image boost. We try to help the industry to make money and be sustainable at the same time. Our challenge is to create a link between grey, the technology, and green, the marine ecology. We already see that corporate social responsibility has become more and more important to companies. The European Union has a clear policy: to have a strong, successful maritime industry, but it should be environmentally friendly. Growth is mainly expected in ecological sensitive areas, think of the Arctic and deep sea. IMARES wants to contribute to this policy by sharing and developing the necessary knowledge to conduct business in these areas.”

Up to date knowledge

IMARES finds its clients in the industry and within the Dutch government. Karman: “We started in the oil and gas industry, but expanded our research to the complete maritime industry. For example, we get ecological questions from ship owners and questions about the Arcticand deep sea from dredging, offshore and shipbuilding companies who become more and more interested to get active in these areas. Does the crisis affect us? Well, we do not earn heaps of money, but companies still know where to find us. However, we do feel the cut-backs for research money within the government. We focus on how to support the maritime industry in the best way possible. It is of the utmost importance and a priority for us to have our knowledge straight, so we can keep on helping the maritime industry with its growth. We want to enlarge our knowledge base and within Wageningen UR, we started a strategic research programme to bundle the strengths and knowledge within the whole organisation.”

Maritime Campus Netherlands

IMARES is one of the founders of the Den Helder-based Maritime Campus Netherlands (MCN). Together with a number of research institutes, education institutes, businesses and government bodies, IMARES works on a research programme with the mission to use the sea in a sustainable, economically profitable and ecologically friendly way. Karman: “We started in the north of the province of North-Holland and want to expand to other regions as well, being an authoritative international marine, maritime and environmental technological cluster. MCN received a grant from the European Union to develop a strategic knowledge base, which is very important for our region.”

Projects

One of the services IMARES can offer the maritime industry is the certification ofballast water systems. “IMO has a ballast water convention with requirements, that need to be met in the future”, Karman clarifies. “We test systems that work by adding toxics, as these toxics can end up in the water. It is now also possible to test small-scale systems and we plan to have ballast water testing facilities aimed at fresh and brackish water. This facility should be ready within a few months and will be the only facility for fresh and brackish water in the Netherlands and only one of the few worldwide. We try to form alliances with other facilities in the world, as the need for these facilities will only grow in the future. Another exciting project we are working on is the production of protein from the sea. Protein is one of the three main needs of mankind, the others being raw materials and energy. We want to explore if we can use the sea to provide for the need of protein by means of fish, algae and seaweed farming. Maybe offshore wind parks can be used for farming these things. It is important to work together with the maritime industry for this project, as the industry can help us for example with transport, engineering and harvesting. It will be pioneering and a long-term project, but IMARES tries to make the connection with the maritime industry, which, with its knowledge, will be able to help us with this.”

Gail van den Hanenberg