Sea Cargo Charter expands scope to boost shipping’s decarbonization

The Sea Cargo Charter (SCC), a global framework for aligning chartering activities with responsible environmental behavior to promote international shipping’s decarbonization, is expanding its scope four years after its inception to accelerate shipping’s energy transition.

The Sea Cargo Charter provides a common, global baseline for assessing and disclosing the climate alignment of chartering activities of charterers and shipowners.

It enables signatories to quantitatively evaluate and disclose whether their chartering activities align with internationally adopted climate goals. Moreover, it serves to support responsible decision-making. 

With 37 signatories already on board, this expansion aims to increase the initiative’s impact on transparency and shipping decarbonization across the entire industry by allowing charterers and shipowners to monitor and report their emissions under a common framework.  

“The expansion of the Sea Cargo Charter to fully include shipowners signals a new milestone in the global endeavour to decarbonise shipping,” said Rasmus Bach Nielsen, Sea Cargo Charter Chair and Global Head of Fuel Decarbonisation at Trafigura. 

“By uniting owners and charterers under a common framework and methodology, we hope our initiative can further enhance transparency and foster collaboration across the industry, thereby amplifying its impact.”  

The Sea Cargo Charter, launched in 2020, establishes a common baseline and enables charterers and now shipowners to assess whether their activities align with internationally adopted climate goals, as outlined by the International Maritime Organization (IMO).

This expansion to shipowners is about increasing impact and maximizing collaboration between business partners, intending to expedite the transition to decarbonized shipping through more transparency across the whole industry.

Notably, the Sea Cargo Charter is consistent with the ambitious goals set by the IMO’s 2023 GHG Strategy. Signatories will measure their climate alignment against the latest 2023 IMO ambitions for the first time in its forthcoming annual report, scheduled for publication in June.  

To remind, in December last year, SCC revealed its plans to revise its reporting ambitions, aligning its trajectory with emission reduction goals in response to the IMO’s revised GHG strategy.