Your Ships’ Carbon Footprint

These days, most shipowners are committing resources to get an idea of their carbon footprint and thereby hopefully determine their impact on the climate. This may seem like a relatively easy task given that the amount of greenhouse gas (GHG) emitted is directly proportional to the amount of fuel used. It’s a matter of simply multiplying the amount of fuel consumed by its emission factor. However, this method by itself does not address the concerns related to climate change.

Nowadays, it’s necessary to establish precisely where and how energy is consumed. A complete analysis must be performed on your entire fleet and all your consumers must be identified in order to arrive at each ship’s carbon footprint. Once completed, it will serve as your baseline scenario, an indispensable tool recognized by all international standards and widely used in industry and commerce.

It’s not possible to quantify your potential for lowered GHG emissions without beforehand conducting a standardized assessment enabling the determination of your baseline scenario. Any organization, program or financial assistance that focuses on reduced GHGs without taking this basic principle into account is considered pursuing a seriously flawed approach and lacking credibility as regards international standards. The baseline scenario is the key tool for formulating GHG reduction targets.

In addition, this analysis, also called energy audit, makes it possible to determine your potential for avoided emissions. For example, a ship equipped with filtered reverse osmosis water dispensers will avoid a greater quantity of GHG emissions compared to a ship supplied with bottled water.

By calculating your carbon footprint and your avoided emissions, you can ascertain your ships’ impact on the climate. More importantly, you will be able to measure and quantify your contribution to a low-carbon economy.

We have assessed dozens of ships and, during the course of our mandates, we constructed key performance indicators (KPIs) that enabled us to compare ships of similar nature. Is your compressed air consumption reasonable compared with another similar ship? How much fuel is your auxiliary boiler consuming? Is it normal? How much return can you generate from the installation of variable frequency drives on various apparatus? Based on your baseline scenario, how many tons of CO₂ will you be able to cut?

Do business with certified professionals. Do business with GHGES Marine Solutions and you will know.