Boskalis_CSR_report__2016

Impact on Local Communities CSR 2016 – Boskalis 20

Community investment programs

THE Ocean Cleanup

Boskalis was one of the main sponsors of The Ocean Cleanup’s North Sea Prototype test. Boyan Slat, a young Dutch entrepeneur, aims to develop an installation of up to 100 kilometers to clean up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch between Hawaii and California. He estimates that deployment of the barrier could remove half of the so-called plastic soup in a decade. The purpose of the North Sea Prototype test, which involved the deployment of a 100 meter-long barrier 23 kilometers off the coast of the Netherlands, is to examine the structural integrity of the barrier in a harsh environment like the North Sea. In November 2016 Boskalis won the SponsorRing 2016 award in the ‘Society’ category for its sponsorship. The SponsorRing is the annual award for the best sponsorship cases in the Netherlands.

Boskalis Beach Cleanup Tour

The objective of the annual Boskalis Beach Cleanup Tour, an initiative of NGO The North Sea Foundation, is to clear waste along the full length of the Dutch North Sea coast and thus raise awareness of the issues around plastic soup. Boskalis has been the main sponsor of the initiative since 2013. During the 2016 tour a total of 19,000 kilograms of waste was collected by 2,300 volunteers, including Boskalis colleagues with their family during a Boskalis family day.

EXHIBITION AT DELFT’S PRINSENHOF MUSEUM

Tens of thousands of interested visitors saw the exhibition ‘Vermeer comes home’ in the Prinsenhof Museum in Delft, the Netherlands in the summer of 2016. Johannes Vermeer’s famous painting ‘The Little Street’ was the highlight of the exhibition. The precise location of the real-life little street was identified in 2015 using 17th-century records of dredging work in Delft’s canals – one of the reasons why Boskalis decided to support the exhibition as a main sponsor. In addition, Boskalis has had close ties to Delft for many years, partly because many Boskalis colleagues with a technical background studied at Delft University of Technology. Another factor was the museum’s cultural and historical significance: the Prinsenhof was the last residence of William of Orange, ‘Father of the Nation’, whose name was also given to one of the trailing suction hopper dredgers in the Boskalis fleet. Boskalis used the event as an opportunity to host our employees and their relatives. Boskalis has a tradition of supporting scientific research that is of direct or potential relevance to our sector. Together with knowledge centers and universities we support (fundamental) research as well as sharing knowledge through lectures and presentations. At Delft University of Technology we co-fund a Chair of Dredging Technology and supply a scientific officer. In addition, we facilitate a dual lectureship between Delft University of Technology and Wageningen University. Every year Boskalis supervises interns, graduates and doctorate students. The number for 2016 was 232 (2015: 201). SUPPORTING SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH AND EDUCATION