Guidelines and goals: reducing shipping’s emissions

With the emission figures in mind, the industry is working towards reducing its overall environmental impact when it comes to CO₂, NOX, and SOX emissions. Guidelines exist to steer this, including the International Maritime Organisation’s (IMO) ‘Greenhouse Gas strategy’.

The strategy envisages a reduction of CO₂ emissions by at least 40% by 2030 and pursuing efforts towards 70% by 2050. The strategy also aims to reduce total annual greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50% by 2050 compared with 2008.

Alongside this, a new EU policy, which will be published on 14 July, has been designed to cut shipping industry carbon emissions and is predicted to include new policies surrounding the use of fossil fuels, green fuel law for EU shipping and the use of alternative fuels.

How is the industry working towards achieving the targets organisations and government bodies are presenting them with them? One of the first ways is via the use of new technology. There are currently several technologies that can be used to increase the energy efficiency of ships and in turn reduce emissions; one of these is ship-to-shore data feed technology.

This onboard monitoring of operations against an ideal baseline can see the given ship achieving optimum efficiency while significantly reducing its CO₂ emissions.

Veritas Petroleum Services group commercial and new business development director Steve Bee said: “Using this technology, in some cases a reduction of CO₂ up to 20% on a single vessel has been seen.

This ship-to-shore data feed – normally via a cloud-based software facility – allows key operational decisions to be made in real-time, and such technologies can be applied to existing fleets with the opportunity for real gains in efficiency.”

Another solution for reducing a ship’s overall emission output is exhaust emission technology. This sees the capture and treatment of exhaust emissions and tends to focus on specific air pollutant emissions such as sulphur. This could see this solution having to be used alongside other technology. It can be retrofitted to existing ships, offering a benefit to companies wishing to incorporate the technology with existing fleets.

One way in which shipping can work towards reducing its environmental impact is by changing the behaviour of the industry. Modifications to ship operations can lead to improved energy efficiency and therefore reduced emissions.

Slow steaming – the process of operating a vessel, especially container ships, at a significantly reduced maximum speed – is a tried and tested industry method to save money and fuel. This, paired with preventative maintenance programmes such as oil condition monitoring or purifier checks, would change the overall behaviour of and output from vessels.

Another method discussed during the webinars was the use of alternative, greener fuel. The industry is actively exploring liquid natural gas (LNG), hydrogen and even the use of solar panels due to their reduced environmental impacts and environmentally friendly production.

Bee commented: “Fuels such as LNG offer a very strong option as a positive future marine fuel. This is due to the fact that they can offer significant reductions in carbon dioxide emissions while still being able to be supplied to the existing infrastructure and burned in current engine setups.”

Although the shipping industry frequently comes under fire for its greenhouse gas contributions, the changes and milestones already achieved by companies and organisations in reducing its impact should also be noted.

Cruise companies such as Carnival Corporations have pioneered LNG cruise ships with the company adding more LNG-powered vessels to their fleet this year. Other operators have been investing in LNG and other greener fuels and alternative power sources such as harnessing the power of wind and sun to power vessels.

Data the industry reported to the IMO shows it achieved a CO₂ intensity reduction of between 32% and 44%, attributed to a significant reduction of fuel consumption. Results such are a positive step forward in a hope that the industry will achieve the greenhouse gas regulations set out by IMO by 2030.

However, despite the industry making headway in pioneering new fuels and technology, it is still under fire from the media, government, and environmentalists.