Meet the nominees for the Danish Shipping DEI Award 2026
This year’s theme for the DEI Award is “Small changes, big impact”. The three nominees have now been announced.
On Thursday 13 August, the champagne corks will pop, and the suspense will be over when the winner of the Danish Shipping DEI Award 2026 is revealed.
“I am proud to present an exceptionally strong field of nominees for the Danish Shipping DEI Award. These are three shipping companies that, in their own distinct ways, embody this year’s theme, ‘Small changes, big impact’, and create change that makes a tangible, positive difference in everyday working life,” says Nina Porst, Executive Director of Sustainable Ships and Skills at Danish Shipping.
The photo shows last year’s winners from DFDS. Photo: Carsten Lundager
The nominees
ESVAGT – for a practical, usable and transferable initiative focusing on wellbeing, dialogue and the prevention of bullying and harassment.
The initiative was subsequently supported by a set of dialogue cards designed as a physical game and used on board during operational meetings. The cards are based on realistic dilemmas from everyday life at sea and allow employees to discuss situations that can be difficult to handle. In this way, the initiative strengthens both awareness of the issues and the shared language needed to identify and address them in practice.
Unitankers – for “Fleet’s Got Talent”, a simple, community-building initiative with the potential to strengthen a sense of belonging across vessels, offices and families.
Fleet’s Got Talent is an internal competition open to all vessels, inviting crew members to share talents, ideas and moments from their lives – both on board and at home. Rather than focusing on large programmes or structural changes, Fleet’s Got Talent builds on something simple: creating a space where people feel encouraged to share something of themselves and connect across roles, vessels and locations.
Hafnia – for establishing and developing its Seafarer Advisory Board.
The initiative gives seafarers a clear voice in the company’s work on inclusion and culture and helps create a stronger connection between sea and shore. Through the Seafarer Advisory Board, Hafnia does not simply talk about seafarers, but with them. The jury particularly emphasises that the initiative is not merely about developing policies or programmes for seafarers, but about actively involving seafarers in the work.
The theme of the Danish Shipping DEI Award 2026 is “Small changes, big impact”.
This year, we want to highlight initiatives that demonstrate how both large and small, concrete actions can make a positive difference in everyday working life and contribute to more inclusive and well-functioning workplaces.
What matters is not the scale of the initiative, but the positive impact it has on people in their day-to-day working lives.
The jury has placed particular emphasis on initiatives that:
- are concrete and embedded in practice
- have a positive impact on employees, with experienced impact carrying more weight than extensive documentation
- reflect the individual organisation’s context, resources and starting point
- have the potential to inspire others in the industry
Previous winners of the DEI Award
The Danish Shipping DEI Award was presented for the first time in 2022. Hafnia won for its “Maritime Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) Lab”. It was created together with RightShip, Wilhelmsen, Thome Group, Rio Tinto and Anglo American and served as a diversity think tank.
In 2023, the award went to Trine Hoffmann of A.P. Moller – Maersk. The jury placed particular emphasis on Trine Hoffmann’s exceptional drive, her high level of ambition and the role she played in taking diversity to a new level within her organisation.
In 2024, the award once again went to Hafnia. The jury highlighted the shipping company’s highly considered and broad approach to advancing equality, diversity and inclusion, which is continuously developed and expanded. The approach is supported by clear and ambitious targets and followed up with data.
Last year, DFDS won the DEI Award. Among other things, the jury highlighted DFDS’s strong management commitment, with DEI targets integrated into both KPIs and bonus schemes, as well as the broad integration of initiatives into core processes such as recruitment, pay and leadership development. The Waves of Talent programme has already delivered measurable results.