Charterers representing twenty percent of global shipped tonnage now have policies in place to avoid using the most inefficient ships based on the GHG Emissions Rating, according to a nonprofit organisation Carbon War Room.
In the past two and a half years, usage of the GHG Emissions Rating and the A to G scale has increased by more than 450 percent, from 350 million shipped tonnes when Cargill, Huntsman, and UNIPEC began their usage to 1.95 billion shipped tonnes today. The GHG Emissions Rating now influences 24,700 vessel movements annually, according to Jose Maria Figueres, Chairman of the Board, Carbon War Room.
The GHG Emissions Rating allows charterers and other stakeholders to assess the efficiency of vessels. It utilizes an A to G scale, where A represents the most-efficient ships, and G the least efficient.
In addition to allowing companies to avoid chartering inefficient vessels, the data held on each individual ship is also used by some companies as a guide for calculating their carbon footprint from maritime shipping.
For example, the Mosaic Company, a producer and marketer of concentrated phosphate and potash crop nutrients which charters around 130 vessels annually, now excludes all G-rated vessels for international shipping and uses the GHG Emissions Rating as a guide for calculating and reporting its maritime carbon footprint.
Neil Beckingham, Director of Sustainability at The Mosaic Company, said: ”By using more-efficient ships, we are gaining cost efficiencies and furthering our efforts to reduce Mosaic’s carbon footprint. Given the success of GHG Emissions Rating vetting, we are reviewing options to also exclude F-rated vessels. Emissions from shipping currently represent less than five percent of Mosaic’s carbon footprint.”