The monitoring, reporting and verification of CO2 Emissions from ships
In light of the fact that no International Agreement is in place to monitor the emissions from ships, the EU has approved that all ships over 5,000 GRT arriving and departing from member states shall implement a Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (MRV) system of CO2 emissions. The verification of the report will be performed by an accredited Greenhouse Gas audit company. It should be noted that there will be a global MRV requirement in the future, which is being addressed by the IMO.
Introduction
Center Testing International (CTI) is a global independent Certification of Compliance company with offices in Shanghai, London, Singapore and Atlanta. Our company has many accreditations including UKAS, Lloyds Register and Germanischer Lloyd. It is publically listed, employing over 3,000 people worldwide with annual revenues of over $100 million. CTI Marine Services – the maritime division with its HQ in London is managed by former senior DNV surveyors, Government marine safety surveyors, senior marine technical managers and Chief Engineers.
Its prime area of operation is as an independent audit, inspection and Certification of Compliance company. CTI is the only company already accredited to ISO 17020 by UKAS for ship’s asbestos survey and inspection and also has ISO 14065 for greenhouse gas auditing .
Overview of the regulation requirements
In 2007 it was determined that 60,000 ships in the global maritime industry emitted more CO2 than the 6th largest country, Germany.
After consultation with all the stakeholders it was agreed that there should be a staged approach and all companies should have a MRV for CO2 emissions by January 2018.
The introduction of a MRV will lead to a 2% reduction in CO2 emissions, which will relate to a saving of £1.2 Billion by 2030.
The MRV should cover all the relevant information that can provide an accurate assessment of the ships efficiency and the monitoring will focus on the calculated CO2 emissions, as this is the most relevant Green House Gas.
The ship operator will choose one of 4 monitoring methods
- Use of fuel bunker delivery notes
- Bunker fuel tank consumption
- Flow meters for equipment that emits gases
- Direct emission measurement
The operator will then produce a ship specific monitoring plan, which shall consist of a complete and transparent document of the monitoring method for the ship concerned and shall contain at least the following elements:
- Name, IMO number, type of ship, Port of registry and name of ship owner.
- The name of the company and address and contact details of DPA.
- A description of the sources of CO2 emissions on board the ship and the type of fuel used.
- A description of the procedures,systems and responsibilities used to update the CO2 emission sources over the reporting period.
- A description of the procedures used to monitor the completeness of the list of voyages
- A description of the procedures for monitoring the fuel consumption of the ship.
- Single emission factors used for each fuel type
- A description of the procedures used for determining activity data per voyage
- A description of the method used to determine surrogate data for closing data gaps
- A revision record sheet
The reporting is required on an annual basis and the report should be performed by an ISO 17045 accredited verifier who should be independent and competent legal entities.
The verifier will issue the ship with a compliance certificate, valid for 18 month’s, which should be kept on the ship.
The operators should be aware that there will be EU member state Port inspections to check compliance of the MRV CO2 certificate, penalties for non compliance will be effective, proportional and dissuasive.
The reporting period starts 1 January 2018, however all companies need to submit to the verifiers a monitoring plan for each ship indicating the chosen method to monitor CO2 emissions and other relevant information by 31 August 2017.
As you can appreciate it will be in the operators interests not to leave the production of the monitoring plan to the last minute and we would welcome the opportunity to assist you with producing the most accurate plan for your ships.
CTI would perform a pre-audit of the ship’s CO2 monitoring management system of one of your ships, we will check data credibility by checking company report data and at the same time identify any potential risks related to any existing monitoring and provide recommendations for a suitable MRV plan.
After this the ship operator can schedule a programme of producing a suitable MRV plan for the fleet prior to 31 August 2017.