Four years after its inception, The Sea Cargo Charter initiative to measure shipping emissions against decarbonisation benchmarks is expanding its current membership scope to include shipowners.
A global framework, launched in 2020, offers a uniform baseline and allows charterers and now shipowners to examine whether their activities align with the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) revised greenhouse gas strategy adopted last July. With 37 signatories onboard the green movement, the expansion to shipowners is about enhancing effect and maximising collaboration among business partners to speed up the transition to decarbonised shipping through more transparency across the industry.
The move to include shipowners in the framework was announced in December when The Sea Cargo Charter decided to align its trajectory with the IMO’s emission targets. Signatories will measure their climate alignment for the first time in its forthcoming annual report, scheduled for publication in June. The charter already has a few owners signed up, including Maersk Tankers, NYK Line, Torvald Klaveness, Eagle Bulk Shipping, Navig8 and Norden.
“The expansion of the Sea Cargo Charter to fully include shipowners signals a new milestone in the global endeavour to decarbonise shipping,” said Rasmus Bach Nielsen, Sea Cargo Charter chair and global head of fuel decarbonisation at Trafigura, adding: “By uniting owners and charterers under a common framework and methodology, we hope our initiative can further enhance transparency and foster collaboration across the industry, thereby amplifying its impact.”