Global Shipping Business Network (GSBN) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with classification society DNV to promote decarbonisation and accelerate the adoption of alternative fuels by enabling the trusted sharing of verified data for green claims.

The not-for-profit consortium enabling efficient, paperless and sustainable growth in global trade with its data infrastructure and ecosystem of partners noted that the International Maritime Organization’s Maritime Environment Protection Committee (MEPC 80) recently revised its greenhouse gas strategy, with a goal to reduce CO₂ emissions by at least 40% by 2030. 

It said that technological innovation and the introduction of alternative fuels and energy sources will be integral to achieving the overall ambition. 

“To achieve this, there is a need to accurately measure and track emissions reduction data across the supply chain as well as ensure the green claims on environmental performance are reliable, comparable and verifiable to provide the accountability of decarbonisation investments,” GSBN said.

It added that DNV, for its part, has recently launched Emissions Connect, an emissions data verification engine, as a major step in enabling the verification of operational data. 

Under the MoU, DNV and GSBN will collaborate to conduct pilots with its existing Shipping Line members to connect verified shipment data from DNV, with the goal of issuing reliable and accountable green claims to end users backed by real granular data. 

As the industry is going through major changes, such as EU ETS, and various book and claim systems, trustworthy data at the shipment level is vital for customers to participate in the decarbonisation journey.

“To achieve shipping decarbonisation at scale, it needs to have a robust data foundation of verified data to enable trusted data sharing across the fragmented and complex supply chain,” said Bertrand Chen, CEO at GSBN.

He added that GSBN’s network of Shipping members and its blockchain infrastructure are “ideally positioned” for this use case.

“By partnering with DNV, users of the platform can share verified data for vessel operations (can be shared) granularly with end customers to support decision-making and prove claims of sustainable shipping,” Chen said.

Trond Hodne, business director Maritime, DNV said: “We are excited to partner with GSBN and the users of the network to accelerate decarbonisation across the shipping industry.”

“With GSBN’s data infrastructure and our service, we can help the users of the network enable a higher transparency and accountability in relation to green claims.”