The facility is equipped to dismantle a wide range of vessels, including seagoing ships, inland waterway vessels, coasters, passenger ships and ferries. It will also handle offshore wind turbines and industrial plants. Björn Sommer, one of the company’s two managing directors, explained that the facility can process any structure that can pass through the sea lock into the Port of Emden.
On August 18, 2025, Lower Saxony’s Environment Minister Christian Meyer visited the site and met with Sommer and co-managing director Sebastian Jeanvré to discuss ship recycling activities. The facility has already received several inquiries and is preparing to expand operations.
Meyer emphasized the importance of this development: “I am very pleased that the Port of Emden can now plan and build with a future in mind, so that ships can finally be recycled sustainably here and not in distant countries.” He added: “In recent decades, we have had to witness environmental disasters because decommissioned industrial ships were shipped, particularly to Southeast Asia, where they rotted under the worst environmental and social conditions. Lower Saxony, together with Bremen, has therefore long advocated for domestic ship recycling and raw material extraction in Germany through the Conference of Environment Ministers, and global environmental regulations have finally been tightened with the Hong Kong Convention.”
The permit issued covers the dismantling of government vessels in non-commercial use, as well as inland, coastal, and seagoing ships. It authorizes the complete recycling process, including depollution and the safe removal of hazardous materials.
The Association for Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering (VSM), representing the German maritime industry, previously urged the government to review restrictive legal frameworks that made professional ship recycling in Germany difficult. VSM argued that while regulations are now harmonized at European and international levels, domestic licensing requirements had posed significant barriers to German companies. The association called for these hurdles to be adjusted to a “reasonable level” to enable competitive and sustainable operations.
The development in Emden aligns with the enforcement of the Hong Kong International Convention for the Safe and Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships (HKC), which came into force on June 26, 2025. The HKC provides a comprehensive framework covering the entire lifecycle of ships—from design and construction to operation and final dismantling—ensuring safety and environmental protection. Under the treaty, only authorized facilities can carry out ship recycling.
In Europe, binding regulations for sustainable ship dismantling have been in effect since November 20, 2013. The establishment of Emden’s recycling facility marks a turning point for Germany, positioning the country to process end-of-life vessels domestically in line with international standards.
