Carbon Credits

Branson sails on with "Operation Rock the Boat"
Dec 6, 2010 Business Green
The Carbon War Room has today launched an online database ranking the environmental performance of most of the world's ocean-going vessels in a bid to help the shipping industry cut carbon dioxide emissions by more than half a billion tonnes a year by 2020.
The lobby group, which was founded by Richard Branson 18 months ago, said the new ShippingEfficiency.org site will list fuel efficiency data for around 60,000 ships, including the majority of the world's container ships, tankers, bulk carriers, cargo ships, cruise ships and ferries.

The site aims to help businesses and individuals make better informed decisions about the ships they use by rating vessels using a simple A to G grading system.

The group said it has used rating methodology developed by the United Nations' International Maritime Organization's under its Energy Efficiency Design Index and combined it with data from the world's largest ship registry, IHS Fairplay.

The site is the latest project from The Carbon War Room's so-called "Operation Rock the Boat" initiative, which aims to encourage shipping operators to invest in lower carbon technology to cut emissions and operating costs.

It says a new global fleet based on the most efficient available technologies could cut CO2 emissions by half a billion tonnes a year by 2020, putting it on a path to cut more than one billion tonnes of carbon annually by 2050.

Today's launch forms part of the group's five-pronged attack on shipping emissions, which also calls for the industry to update key charter contracts and accelerate the adoption and enforcement of new national shipping legislation.

In a recent interview with The Economist, Branson said the group is also trying to convince ports in the US to give preferential treatment to lower-carbon vessels when docking.

Shipping is thought to account for about three per cent of the world's carbon emissions, but because it is not covered by the Kyoto Protocol the sector currently has no mandatory targets for cutting emissions.