CBH joins Blue Visby Consortium to support decarbonisation solutions

The CBH Group has joined a consortium of companies participating in the Blue Visby project, which supports research into practical solutions that help reduce the international shipping industry’s greenhouse gas emissions.

As vessel charterers, CBH is participating in the Blue Visby project by sharing vessel information to the neutral, independent Blue Visby Solution platform, which then communicates to the vessel their optimal arrival time, determined by an algorithm.

CBH Head of Chartering Pia van Wyngaard said that by maximising the efficiency of each vessel, CO₂ emissions could be reduced by up to 5 per cent.

“CBH is proud to be part of the Blue Visby project and being part of a global solution to reduce marine transport CO₂ emissions. By providing vessel operators with an optimal arrival time, they can then adjust the vessel’s cruising speed and reduce fuel consumption by using the most efficient speed and route,” van Wynhaard noted.

The company also highlighted that it has a target of reducing our Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 50% by 2030, and for the site-to-customer emissions to be net zero by 2050.

“Being part of the Blue Visby Consortium and reducing the emissions created by shipping our grain to customers is a great way to help achieve our targets and care for the communities and environment we operate in,” it was stressed.

The Blue Visby Consortium consists of 28 companies and institutions and is co-ordinated by Napa Oy and Stephenson Harwood LLP, experts in their respective fields of maritime technology and maritime law. The project was launched in July last year.

The consortium has been working on the Blue Visby Solution, an integrated, multilateral shipping scheduling and contractual system that notifies ships of the optimal date and time for arriving at their destination, eradicating the old “Sail Fast, Then Wait” approach to sailing.

The Blue Visby Solution aims to distribute the arrival times of groups of ships heading for the same destination, providing an optimal target arrival time for each ship while maintaining the scheduled arrival order.

This is achieved by analysing several factors, including the weather, performance of each ship together and congestion at the destination. Crucially, the Blue Visby Solution will provide the contractual architecture, including a sharing mechanism for costs and benefits.

Based on extensive analysis of 2019 shipping data from 150,000 voyages by 13,000 cargo ships in the 150 most visited ports, Finnish tech company NAPA estimates that Blue Visby will enable vessels to reduce their speed by about 1 knot on average, which is well within the operational parameters of the existing commercial fleet. Speed could be reduced on 87% of the voyages, leading to shorter idle times and an average emissions savings potential of 16%.

As part of their decarbonisation strategies, Japanese companies MOL and Marubeni joined the consortium last year.