In conjunction with Yokohama Maritime Forum (YMF), 23-25 October, which was organised by Yokohama Kawasaki International Port Corporation to celebrate the 160th anniversary of the port of Yokohama, one of Japan’s largest maritime trading centres, IAPH’s Clean Marine Fuels working group had a joint meeting with the working group of the other IAPH sustainability flagship project, the Environmental Ship Index (ESI). Members discussed synergies among them as well as collaboration with the working groups of the World Ports Climate Action Program (WPCAP), which was initiated by a series of leading ports in 2018.
Given the direction set by the IMO Greenhouse Gas Strategy, the IMO Resolution on cooperation between shipping and ports and the ‘Getting to Zero Coalition’, a bundling of resources was felt essential to adequately address both safety and commercial viability of alternative fuels bunkering alongside other measures to facilitate the decarbonisation of shipping, such as on-shore power supply, incentive schemes and port call optimisation.
In Yokohama, the ESI working group made good progress in putting the final touches on the project’s 2.0 version, which will go live early next year. Eight years after its conception, the success of the index outpaced its original configuration, both in terms of IT infrastructure and management. Apart from a new, user-friendly website and underlying database infrastructure, the new concept foresees a professional full-time administration and audit scheme. The financial model will also change, with shipowners contributing to the budget and a beneficial membership for port authorities that are members of IAPH. Finally, the governance structure will be streamlined to allow more efficient decision-making. Content-wise, the index will gradually extend its coverage of ship emissions. Next to air emissions, research is currently done to include noise emissions.
