A new service the ‘Clean Shipping Index’ has developed to help ship operators demonstrate enhanced environmental performance to cargo owners and other stakeholders.
Lloyd’s Register is now offering a verification service the ‘Clean Shipping Index’ to shipowners and operators wishing to demonstrate their success in reducing the environmental impact of their activities beyond the requirements of classification or statutory rules and regulations. The service is cost effective and can be delivered with minimal interruption to ship operations.
The verification service is approved by the Clean Shipping Project, the organisation that developed the Clean Shipping Index. More than 1,000 ships have been entered into their Clean Shipping Index database. Verification is the logical next step to provide assurance to all involved: ship operators with confidence that the Clean Shipping Index provides a level playing field; and cargo owners and shippers with confidence that the values can be used when purchasing shipping.
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The Clean Shipping Index is a tool that takes into account significant environmental impacts of shipping, such as emissions to air and water, use of chemicals, effects of antifouling etc. The index is used to rank ships or shipping companies in a database according to the aspects that are most relevant to the user. So, a cargo owner seeking shipping companies with high environmental performance can focus and assess the criteria that matter to them, identifying criteria such as carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, or other issues such as use of biodegradable oils.
Lloyd’s Register has been involved with the Clean Shipping Project for many years, providing advice in 2008 and early 2009 to support the development of the index – trying to ensure that it provides a reasonable representation of environmental performance. When ship operators and cargo owners identified the need for verification, Lloyd’s Register developed a trial verification process and tested it by delivering several trial verification of reported Clean Shipping Index scores with the support of leading Scandinavian ship operators. The verification process, developed using insight from the combined experience of Lloyd’s Register Marine and Lloyd’s Register Quality Assurance Ltd, requires an audit of the ship and, to minimise cost and inconvenience, this can be delivered in conjunction with other onboard inspections delivered by Lloyd’s Register.
Ulf Duus and Jan Ahlbom from the Clean Shipping Project, who together have developed and championed the Clean Shipping Index, said that “We really appreciate the support that Lloyd’s Register provided to us in developing the Clean Shipping Index and are delighted that they now provide a service to verify ship operators’ self assessed scores. We hope that verified scores will provide cargo owners with the confidence to actively use clean shipping scores within their purchasing procedures.”
