Ensure the Best Maritime Regulatory Compliance

The maritime industry has always faced a range of threats, from human error and mechanical failures to unpredictable weather and water conditions. These risks are only growing, due to factors such as climate change, piracy and the increasing financial pressures of our volatile world.  

To make the industry as safe as possible, the creation of maritime regulations to promote safety, security and environmental protection was critical. Ensuring ships maintain compliance with these regulations is a crucial aspect of the industry. It ensures safety, environmental protection, and fair-trade practices. 

As a maritime organisation, staying compliant with maritime regulations is therefore imperative for your survival. However, ensuring compliance can be difficult, especially in remote areas or with ships flying flags of convenience. Regulations are constantly evolving, making it challenging for ship owners and operators to stay compliant. 

Fortunately, high-quality expertise, technology and solutions are available to help. Find out below exactly what you need to as a shipping organisation to maintain maritime  

regulatory compliance. In doing so, you will improve your risk management, keeping people, cargo and the environment safer. 

A guide to maritime regulations   

Maritime regulations are a complex set of rules governing activities on the high seas and in territorial waters. These regulations are essential for ensuring safety, preventing pollution, and maintaining order in the marine environment. 

They are primarily developed and enforced by the United Nations’ specialised agency responsible for safety, security, and environmental protection of shipping, the International Maritime Organisation (IMO). The International Hydrographic Organisation (IHO) and International Labour Organisation (ILO) also support in their specific areas. 

Key areas of maritime regulations 

Maritime regulations cover a wide range of topics, most prominently safety, security and environmental protection. Labour standards and maritime boundary disputes are also included. 

Safety is a critical impact of maritime regulations. These rules are related to ship construction, equipment and operational risk management, as well as standards for marine search and rescue. Regulatory compliance with these rules are particularly critical to keep your crew and vessels from suffering disasters. 

Also vital is environmental protection, an increasingly critical aspect for shipping companies for both financial and reputational reasons. Environmental protection maritime regulations include rules to prevent pollution from ships and protect marine ecosystems.  

Maritime regulations related to security are designed to prevent and respond to the increasing threat of maritime terrorism and piracy.  

National maritime regulations 

It isn’t just international regulations you need to be compliant with – there are also local rules wherever you are sailing in the world.  

Individual countries have their own maritime laws and regulations, which vary depending on factors such as a country’s geographic location, economic interests, and environmental concerns. It is vital to also be aware of these, so you stay compliant. 

How to maintain maritime regulatory compliance and risk management 

There are three key strategies to maritime regulatory compliance:  

1. Identify risks: conduct thorough risk assessments to identify potential threats, such as accidents, environmental incidents, legal disputes, and financial losses 

2. Prioritise risks: evaluate the likelihood and impact of each risk to determine the appropriate level of mitigation  

3. Develop mitigation strategies: implement measures to reduce the likelihood or impact of identified risks 

The best way to improve regulatory compliance and mitigate risk 

HiLo recognises the critical role of ISM compliance and self-assessments (including TMSA, Dry BMS and OVMSA) in maintaining maritime regulatory compliance, improving marine risk management and ensuring safer seas.  

Our tailored tool Zenith helps you improve the performance of your fleet through better self-assessments and resolution of safety risks you face. It offers gap analysis and digitalisation to streamline the regulatory compliance process, provide clear documentation for demonstrating your success, and help raise self-assessment performance by up to 48%.  

Zenith identifies where your self-assessment score could be improved through our analysis. It can track improvement activities across your organisation and monitor progress towards closing gaps and centralise HSSE efforts for clarity and alignment.  

Zenith helps you reach your full potential in self-assessments by: 

1. Gap analysis – we identify where you aren’t performing as well as you could, with the insights you need to easy improvements to raise your self-assessment scores 

2. Enhance your scores – Zenith helps you reach the highest levels of self-assessment criteria, so you can improve your performance by up to 48% 

We can provide the right recommendations so you can act decisively to improve your maritime regulatory compliance, enhance your risk management and increase your commercial appeal. 

Improving your regulatory compliance obviously helps improve your risk management – but Zenith isn’t the only HiLo product that can help drive your safety forward. Our SaaS-based maritime risk management tool Pinpoint uses sophisticated algorithms to allow you allowing you to both find problems and learn how to solve them.  

Its analysis is more than 98% accurate, meaning you can prioritise shipping safety issues to fix on your fleet prioritise issues based on their potential long-term impact. Examining each individual risk, we can identify hidden patterns and predict the causes of potential major catastrophes before they occur.  

You can also use HiLo Pinpoint to automatically transfer your data for in-depth risk analysis. HiLo then fully digitalises your data, bringing up your self-assessment scores to show auditors how you are meeting their criteria, saving you the time and effort of the creating the necessary paperwork.  

Try HiLo’s Zenith to improve your regulatory compliance and maritime risk management 

Through Zenith, HiLo can ensure you maintain the best regulatory compliance with maritime regulations. In doing so, you will revolutionise your risk management and shipping safety for your people, your cargo and the environment.  

Our customers have seen improvements in self-assessment performance by up to 48% in the past year. The improved safety this has provided has had huge financial and safety benefits, including: 

• Savings of over $130 million  

• A 2,000 reduction in predicted injuries

Improve your regulatory compliance and maritime risk management  

Request a free demo today today to discuss how HiLo can revolutionise your self-assessments and improve your regulatory compliance and maritime risk management.