EMEA News
'Well-to-Wake' Way Best to Decarbonise Shipping
Shipping should look to aviation if wants to get decarbonisation right, a UK-based maritime consultancy has said.
The approach to alternative marine fuels should adopt a well-to-wake perspective.
"Getting this right is mission critical to the shipping industry's decarbonisation pathway," said University Maritime Advisory Services consultant Nishatabbas Rehmatulla.
UMAS has published a report which examines how "Sustainable Aviation Fuels or Eligible Fuels elements of the International Civil Aviation Organization's market-based climate program, the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation, could be adopted in the context of shipping".
"Shipping, as aviation, should ensure that all the emissions from a fuel - from the production to the distribution to the combustion itself - are accounted for if we are to understand the real climate impact," Rehmatulla said.
"A meaningful policy must incentivise a fair, sustainable and non-perverse shift away from fossil and avoid the risk that emissions are simply shifted elsewhere."
A holistic approach to containing shipping's footprint has found ready listeners within the industry.
Prominence Maritime's chief executive, Ioanna Procopiou, said last month that shipping needs to take this idea onboard.
Currently, bunker fuel use is framed as tank-to-wake where it should follow from well-to-wake, she said at a shipping industry forum.
