BUS604: Innovation and Sustainability

The beaches of the Maldives' many islands make the Indian Ocean archipelago a popular luxury tourist destination, but life in the capital, Male, isn't always as agreeable for its 130,000 residents. Male was running out of space for the new homes and facilities that the increasing number of people flocking to live or work there needed. The solution was to expand the Maldives' land mass by enlarging four of its islands, a difficult task in an environmentally sensitive area full of coral reefs.

The government called in the Dutch marine construction company Van Oord, which started the job in 2015 and completed it in little over a year. Part of the project involved removing the valuable coral and relocating it elsewhere, working throughout with a local NGO, Save the Beach, and other experts. All the rock used to replace the coral, and all the equipment used to do the work, had to be brought in from overseas: a typical example of marine ingenuity.

Such a complicated project is a typical example of work undertaken by Van Oord, which specializes in dredging and marine construction, oil and gas infrastructure, and offshore wind projects. It is one of the world's largest marine engineering companies, employing 4,500 people working on projects all around the world. Yet it is still a family-run business and intends to remain so. In 2017, Van Oord was involved in 180 projects in 42 countries. The coral relocation project in the Maldives is a good example of a technically complex project that shows the company's firm social involvement.

Other major Van Oord international projects included widening access to Rio de Janeiro's harbor so that it can accommodate the new generation of bulk carriers and supertankers; the Gemini Offshore Wind Park off the Dutch coast, consisting of 150 Siemens wind turbines providing energy for 750,000 people, which came fully into operation in May 2017; the Burbo Bank wind farm installation in the Irish Sea eight kilometers off Liverpool; in Kazakhstan, dredging a 68-kilometer-long channel to the port of Prorva, providing access to new oil and gas fields essential to the country's economic development; oil and gas-related offshore activities in Egypt; extensive dredging operations in Kuwait and Dubai; a large land reclamation project to expand the port of Kaohsiung, Taiwan; dredging operations in Indonesia and Australia; a new container terminal at Moin, Costa Rica which, like the Maldives project, involved delicate environmental issues; and even stabilizing the wreck of a sunken Second World War German submarine lying on the sea bed at a depth of 160 meters off the Norwegian cost to prevent its load of toxic mercury from escaping into the sea.

In the Netherlands, some of Van Oord's recent projects include the Rotterdam port extension project Maasvlakte 2 to safeguard the city's position as the most important port in Europe; dredging 600,000m³ of sand as part of the preparatory work for construction of the world's largest sea lock at Ijmuiden which is described as "a new front door" for Amsterdam and enables it to receive the new generation of large seagoing ships; a similar job for the Port of Rotterdam with the Breeddiep Channel Widening Project; and the creation of an artificial peninsula called the "sand motor" near The Hague for preventative natural coastal protection, allowing sand to spread along the coast by wind and water.

With this innovative pilot project, the Netherlands continues to set the standard in marine management by working with, instead of against, the water. Another innovative coastal defense initiative was the Hondsbossche and Pettemer Sea Defense project - the seaward extension of the beach and the construction of a dyke in a dune in front of the dyke between Camperduin and Petten, which increased the Netherlands' land mass by the equivalent of 400 football fields.

In 2017, Van Oord had a turnover of €1.5 billion and recorded a net profit of €78 million.