Ocean-going ships to get ratings on energy efficiency

Richard Branson sets up free internet database detailing vessels' engine size and CO2 emissions

• Richard Branson: Let's show we mean business at Cancún

• • Share91
  • 
  • 
• Comments (8)

• John Vidal, environment editor
• guardian.co.uk, Sunday 5 December 2010 20.36 GMT
• Article history

Richard Branson has set up a free internet database which details the energy efficiency of ocean-going vessels. Photograph: Tim Ireland/PA

A free internet database set up by Richard Branson will today list theenergy efficiency of almost every ocean-going vessel, in a scheme designed to reduce shipping emissions by nearly 25%.

Using publicly available data on the engine size and CO2 emissions of nearly 60,000 ships, exporters and importers, as well as holidaymakers on cruises, will be able to choose between clean and dirty ships.

The initiative, called Shippingefficiency.org, rates ships from A-G in a similar fashion to ratings given to fridges or washing machines. It will allow supermarkets, oil and mining companies, food importers, retailers and manufacturers to specify that their goods are sent from places like China or Australia only by the least polluting ships.

Britain, which imports most of its food and manufactured goods by sea, is expected to be one of the heaviest users of the database.

Shipping contributes around 1bn tonnes of CO2 a year, about 3-4% of the world's total. This makes it collectively the sixth largest greenhouse gas polluter in the world, just after Germany.

"By eco-labelling clean and dirty ships, we hope to change the mindset in shipping and begin making gigaton-scale reductions in emissions," said Peter Boyd, director of Carbon War Room, a business NGO co-founded by Richard Branson with the aim of saving millions of tonnes of CO2 from industry.

"The shipping industry was doing pretty well nothing. In the past, any ship was much like another, and ships polluted like mad. We hope this will act as a catalyst for the industry to become not only sustainable, but also more profitable," said Branson, who is in Cancún for the climate talks.

Shipping has been slow to address carbon emissions. The world fleet has been driven for years by engines designed to burn the cheapest, dirtiest "bunker" fuel. Nearly 15% of the world's ships account for about half of all the industry emissions.

READ FULL STORY HERE