DNVGL takes IACS chair

DNV GL takes the chairmanship of the International Association of Classification Societies

Knut Ørbeck-Nilssen, chief executive, maritime at DNV GL will assume the role of chairman for the usual one year period, taking over taking over from L Sun, head of China Classification Society.

IACS represents the twelve main class societies that are its members at the IMO and other international forums. Each of its members will assume the one year chairmanship in turn.

In an IACS statement on the recent Council meeting of the organisation that took place in Beijing, it said that Ørbeck-Nilssen will spend his 12 months as chair prioritising the IACS quality systems and the assessment of IACS Members against those standards.

With what many industry stakeholders see as the transformation of shipping as it meets the challenge of the fourth industrial revolution, IACS said that a strong focus of Ørbeck-Nilssen will be on modernising the role of class in anticipation of the developments posed by digitalization and new technologies.

Perhaps more difficult will be Ørbeck-Nilssen’s desire to deepening IACS’ ongoing “commitment to transparency in line with the expectations of our stakeholders and society at large.” Some IACS members, for exampl,e publish annual results while others decline to do so.

But regardless of the increased pressure for transparency from its members, IACS retains a crucial and critical link between the regulatory landscape and the interpretation of those rules into detailed applications that the class societies can then use to benchmark shipping.

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