A group of maritime industry stakeholders has created a new Sea Cargo Charter to provide a benchmark for transparent climate reporting in line with IMO decarbonisation targets, which will be integrated into chartering decisions to favour climate-aligned maritime transport.
The initiative was announced by the Global Maritime Forum, a non-profit organisation, and is backed by a collection of energy, agriculture, mining, and commodity trading companies that have agreed to assess and disclose the climate alignment of their shipping activities.
The document has been created by a group including global shippers like Anglo American, Cargill Ocean Transportation, Dow, Norden, Total, and Trafigura, as well as other industry players such as Euronav, Gorrissen Federspiel, and Stena Bulk. Further support will be provided by the Smart Freight Centre, University College London Energy Institute/UMAS, and Stephenson Harwood.
The Sea Cargo Charter establishes a common baseline to quantitatively assess and disclose whether shipping activities are aligned with climate goals, having been written to match the ambitions adopted by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from international shipping by at least 50% by 2050.
“A standard greenhouse gas emissions reporting process will simplify some of the complexities often associated with reporting. It will encourage a more transparent and consistent approach to tracking emissions, which will be a critical part of making shipping more sustainable,” said Jan Dieleman, President, Cargill Ocean Transportation and Chair of the Sea Cargo Charter drafting group.
Founding Signatories of the Sea Cargo Charter include the shippers mentioned above, as well as ADM, Bunge, COFCO International, Equinor, Gunvor Group, Klaveness Combination Carriers, Louis Dreyfus Company, Occidental, Shell, and Torvald Klaveness.
“The Sea Cargo Charter is an important step in laying the foundations for a net-zero emissions shipping industry. Collaboration such as this, from across the sector, is vital to scale-up customer demand for low- or zero-emissions shipping,” said Grahaeme Henderson, Global Head, Shell Shipping & Maritime.
“This same spirit of collaboration is also vital in the pursuit of the technological advances needed to unlock decarbonisation solutions, and in building industry support for regulation which can create an ambitious but level-playing field under which to invest.”
“Building on this momentum we would like the IMO to use its 2023 strategy review to set the trajectory for the sector to move to net-zero emissions by 2050.”
