“Reducing emissions and reporting on progress is becoming increasingly important for the maritime industry and is set to have an impact on business that goes beyond regulatory compliance,” said Knut Ørbeck-Nilssen, CEO, DNV Maritime. “Through providing real-time verified emissions data that the entire maritime value chain can share, trust and act on, Emissions Connect can serve as an important enabler to help the industry achieve its decarbonization goal.”

Regulatory impact

While designed to support with the operational impact of multiple regulatory requirements and decarbonization trajectories, Emissions Connect specifically addresses the needs emerging from the introduction of the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) and the Carbon Intensity Indicator (CII) to the maritime industry.

The EU ETS, due to be phased in from 2024, will require the Document of Compliance (DoC) holder – typically the ship manager – to surrender EU Allowances (EUAs) based on the annual level of emissions. Additionally, the CII rating measures how efficiently a vessel transports goods or passengers. The EU ETS will expose DoC holders to significant financial risk, as emission costs will be factored into contracts between stakeholders to ensure fair distribution. CII is becoming a factor in charter terms, creating balance sheet risk and impacting shareholder value, access to capital, and commercial attractiveness. In this context, the collecting, managing, and sharing of accurate and reliable data will be crucial.

“Reliable, verified data is necessary at every stage of the value chain for operational control and accurate accounting of emissions in order to facilitate commercial agreements,” explains Pål Lande, Digital Business Development Director at DNV Maritime. “Annual aggregated data reports will no longer be sufficient to manage and control ETS allowance and CII performance. Transparency on a trusted and verified voyage statement based on daily real-time reporting of data will be an essential basis of commercial contracts.”

Real-time sharing of verified data

To offer commercial support for the whole maritime value chain DNV has created Emissions Connect, enabling all stakeholders to have a common source of verified emissions data.

Built on the Veracity Data Workbench that supports customers with a strong emissions data management solution, Emissions Connect offers a high-quality emissions data baseline that is digitally verified. Furthermore, it provides verified voyage statements that can be used as a trusted basis for emissions accounting and to facilitate ETS allowance settlements. The tool’s emissions performance simulation allows for projections of a vessel’s future CII score and for planning of EU ETS allowances, facilitating informed decision-making.

High-quality emissions data provided by the shipowner is verified by DNV and shared with customers for self-service in settlement of transactions or other purposes such as compliance reporting, exporting and secure sharing with partners and third parties, including banks and insurance companies adhering to the Poseidon Principles.

“Emissions Connect enables all parties in the value chain to work on the same trusted, verified and standardized dataset, or a single source of truth, which eliminates many of the data governance and trust issues arising from the traditional method of exchanging data via email,” says Lande.