Shipping
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study by the German Institute for Physics and Atmosphere (IPA) claims the sector is accountable for 5% of total worldwide emissions – almost double the UK’s entire carbon footprint. And with the emergence of new economies, such as China and India, the sector is growing fast. The IMO predicts that if something isn’t done to tackle its impact, emissions from ships could increase 72% by 2020. An increasing number of ship owners and operators are taking action, however, driven more by a desire to save money than environmental motives. According to IPA estimates, the global fl eet of 70,000 ships uses around 280 million tons of fuel – and that could reach 400 million tons in the next decade. In an increasingly competitive market, those that save the most money will be the most sustainable – and vice versa. But action is relatively slow. “It’s a complex cross-boundary issue that is not as visible to the consumer, so it’s received relatively little attention as yet,” says Peter Boyd, chief operating offi cer at the Carbon War Room. “There have been some innovative things happening on trucks because consumers see the smoke down the streets – and the shipper is more inclined to do something about it.” Visibility is one thing. A lack of information is another. “Awareness of performance and energy use is still at a very
way refrigerators are classifi ed in the EU), visitors can immediately tell the diff erence between an effi cient, low- emission ship and a less effi cient one. It’s such a simple system, one wonders
low level across the industry,” says Hannes Johnson, a researcher in shipping and marine technology at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden. “At the top management level, they understand their costs but aren’t able to locate it. “It is also a question of knowledge and
competence. People in operations might not have a technical background – so the awareness just isn’t there,” he continues.
Making the grade The Carbon War Room’s new Shipping Effi ciency Initiative aims to help. “If you are a brand deciding strategically on which fl eet should carry your goods, or a port trying to incentivize cleaner air, it’s not easy to see which are the clean ships and which are the dirty ships until it’s already too late,” says Boyd. Thanks to a new website – shippingeffi
ciency.org – shippers, owners and operators, ports, brokers, and insurers can fi nd out the energy- effi ciency rating of the majority of the world’s vessels in operation. Using a simple search function that ranks ships between A and G (much the same
why it hasn’t been done before. “The market is complex,” answers Boyd. “But we made a conscious decision to get the information out there that is high quality but not the be all and end all. “It hasn’t been done before because people have been waiting for certain formula to be completely agreed. But the world doesn’t have time for the methodology to be absolutely 100%.” With almost 50,000 hits and 2,000
registered users from across the world since it launched in December 2010, the site has been warmly welcomed by the shipping community. “We’re even starting to see news releases that actually quote ‘A-grade ships’ or ‘G-grade ships’ – that’s exactly what we want the market to do,” says Boyd proudly. But the ultimate goal of the ship-
ranking initiative is to drive action on the demand side – to encourage the key players to sit up and take an interest in saving – and making – money. Says Boyd, “Our vision of success is of a shipping broker that doesn’t particularly care about the environment, buying an F-grade ship, spending £4 million on it, and then selling it on as a B-grade ship and making a profi t. “The market would be driving that because the B-grade would be more valuable than the F-grade ship. That’s when we’ll know that the information is driving the economics of the industry.”
An increasing number of ship owners and operators are taking action, driven more
by a desire to save money than environmental motives. In an increasingly competitive
market, those that save the most money will be the most sustainable – and vice versa
WWW.CARBONWARROOM.COM
ISSUE 02. JUNE 2011
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