EMEA News
European Shipowners Support CO2 Monitoring with Bunkering Records
The European Community Shipowners' Associations (ECSA) says it supports a European Union (EU) initiative to monitor carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, and the best way to collect the required data is through Bunker Delivery Notes (BDN).
The EU said last year that it will pursue a system for monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) of greenhouse gas emissions starting early 2013, and ECSA said any system must be accurate, simple, cost-effective and exclusively based on the vessels fuel consumption.
Bunker Delivery Notes are are already available on all ships, and are mandatory according to the MARPOL convention and subject to verification during Flag State and Port State inspections.
The organisation also said flag states should be the authorities for data collection.
"The collection of operational and commercial sensitive information is not supported as it would be irrelevant to a pure CO2 MRV system," the group said.
"However, collection of fuel consumption data including 'cargo carried' and distance travelled is a very useful tool for internal purpose of individual shipping companies in order to improve the individual performance of their vessels."
ECSA added that any mandatory MRV system must be agreed upon at the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) level to create a global framework.
It called on the European Commission to carry out an impact assessment study investigating the MRV process, and said the current EU initiative should only have the intention of assisting the IMO's work in the same area.
