The International Chamber of Shipping (ICS) reported that the ‘A’ to ‘E’ operational efficiency rating of every ship above 5,000 gt will be made fully public and updated on an annual basis.
Aiming to ship efficiency, the rating system is planned to come into force as soon as IMO’s MEPC 75 meeting which starts on November 16, with further guidelines filled out at MEPC 76 next year.
It is reported that the system will extinguish the secrecy over ship efficiency and emissions data. Similarly, IMO’s s Data Collection System, which entered into force in 2018, is anonymized to the extent that individual ships cannot be identified, and access to this anonymized data is restricted to “Parties to Annex VI only”, i.e. governments, not charterers.
However, this decision has received backlash from shippers, who argue that greater transparency would allow them to favour more efficient vessels, unleashing market forces to incentivise shipowners to cut carbon emissions.
Moreover, it is reported that the system is welcomed by signatories to the new Sea Cargo Charter. Also, the Global Maritime Forum announced last month that a group of the world’s largest energy, agriculture, mining, and commodity trading companies will for the first time assess and disclose the climate alignment of their shipping activities via the new charter, something that will be made easier with open access to the A to E ratings.
In efforts to deal with shipping emissions, RightShip launched the GHG rating for 2020 enabling charterers benchmark the emissions profile of a vessel or a fleet.
An IMO spokesperson confirmed that in the current draft text resulting from October’s Intersessional Working Group, a ship’s statement of compliance will contain its efficiency rating.
