This past June, SF Bay Ferry received an official certification from Green Marine at the GreenTech 2025 Conference.
Joining the Green Marine program has been several years in the making. SF Bay Ferry Senior Transportation Planner Arthi Krubanandh helped lead the agency’s certification process, joining other marine industry representatives, including ports, terminals, and shipowners, who are also participants in the Green Marine program.
“When the SF Bay Ferry Board of Directors adopted the Sustainability Policy last year, it gave us a formal structure to pursue the certification, advancing our commitment to sustainability and continuous improvement,” Krubanandh said. “As part of the Green Marine certification process, we coordinated a detailed self-evaluation and led the agency through a third-party site visit that assessed the ferry’s performance in areas including greenhouse gas emissions, underwater noise, and waste management.”
The certification has proved valuable for SF Bay Ferry’s planning team to verify that current practices align with rigorous third-party standards and provide a solid foundation for continuous improvement. It has also highlighted areas for enhancement that are common among many transit operators. Krubanandh noted that the Green Marine program has facilitated regional collaboration around maritime-specific impacts such as underwater noise. She also mentioned the importance of the agency’s participation in a regional Transit Sustainability Working Group, a space for ongoing dialogue among Bay Area transit agencies. “While our operations are maritime, we often identify shared sustainability challenges and explore partnerships responding to indicators such as waste management.”
This process of benchmarking SF Bay Ferry’s environmental performance demonstrates that the agency is on a steady trajectory of environmental leadership. SF Bay Ferry continues to evolve and test the boundaries of sustainable maritime operations.
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