Maritime giants unveil guidelines to net zero for Ro-Ro vessels

Global Ro-Ro Community (GRC), a joint initiative supporting the decarbonization of roll-on roll-off (Ro-Ro) ocean freight transportation, recently unveiled guidelines for calculating greenhouse gas (GHG) emission intensity levels for cargo vessels.

As informed, the Global Ro-Ro Community consisting of Japan’s maritime sector titans Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha (K Line), Mitsui O.S.K. Lines (MOL), Eastern Car Liner, Nippon Yusen Kabushiki Kaisha (NYK Line), classification society ClassNK, and Norway’s Wallenius Wilhelmsen executed this vision in collaboration with the Dutch non-profit organization for climate action in the freight sector Smart Freight Centre (SFC).

According to the initiative partners, the guidelines address a major challenge in the maritime logistics chain: inconsistent measurement of carbon emissions, particularly those classified as Scope III, i.e., emissions generated indirectly in a company’s value chain.

By harmonizing how these emissions are calculated, the vision seeks to offer ship owners ‘more accurate’ data to assess and reduce their environmental impact.

As informed, the standard model of the guide is compliant with the ISO 14083, an international principle for the calculation and reporting of GHG emissions, focusing specifically on emissions from freight and passenger transport and with the GLEC (Global Logistics Emissions Council).

Per the Global Ro-Ro Community members, the guidelines aim to offer a practical framework for Ro-Ro carriers to report their emissions on an annual basis. As an example, relevant voyages including cargo-carrying legs and repositioning trips would be considered, using operational data like fuel consumption, distance traveled and cargo volume, to calculate the emissions.

Moreover, as explained, while carriers are free to use their own internal methods if they align with GRC’s principles, the new approach is expected to become a baseline for comparison across carriers and routes. Specifically, tradelane-level benchmarks are envisaged to allow companies to evaluate their ecological performance on a regional or global scale.

The SFC reportedly plans to collect the data on environmental performance on a ship-by-ship basis and then release the average emission intensity data for the industry. Simultaneously, the partners anticipate that the entire project will provide a cross-industry first step toward more transparency, accountability, and progress on climate goals.

To remind, the Global Ro-Ro Community was launched in spring last year during Smart Freight Week in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

At the time of its establishment, representatives from NYK Line underscored that “through fair and transparent discussions”, participating members would work together on developing international accounting guidance for GHG emissions that would help clear the path toward net zero.