Certification institute LRQA (formerly part of Lloyd’s Register) has approved Dutch company Shipping Technology’s CO2 Emission Reporting Module, known as ST Brain, that calculates the CO2 emissions of inland navigation vessels and coasters.
Inland shipping entrepreneurs can now be assured that the automatic emission reporting of ST Brain meets ISO standards. Both the process of collecting the ship’s data (engines, generators, fuel, bow thrusters, boilers etc) and the way the software calculates CO2 emissions per tonne of cargo transported per kilometre have been validated.
Industry standard ISO 14083 defines how to calculate CO2 emissions so that all companies in a production and transport chain use the same method. Only if all partners in a chain calculate in the same way can anything meaningful be said about the emissions associated with delivering a product at the end of a chain.
Shipping Technology developed an automated way of calculating emissions from inland vessels and converting the data collected into a clear unit: the amount of grams of CO2 per tonne transported per kilometre. This method has now been validated. Ship owners and inland shipping companies can now provide verified emissions data to their customers and regulators at the push of a button – per voyage and/or per period.
Shipping Technology CTO Tom Boerema said: “This is a big step for us. For our current customers, it now becomes even more interesting to use more functions of the ST Brain. The ST Brain is the hardware on which all our software modules run, such as autonomous lane assist, efficiency, incident reconstruction, safety and more. With this CO2 validation, you can clearly see the added value of the ST Brain, and LRQA’s validation also brings clear added value. It works like this: we install the ST Brain, a comprehensive ‘black box’ that collects data on the ship, engines, fuel, voyage, speed, arrival and departure times and more. That data is processed in such a way that it immediately provides useful data for a captain, shipowner, end-client or insurance company. To my knowledge, we are the only company in Europe that can immediately present a ship’s measured data in a usable, meaningful way and with a validated result.”
Shipping Technology’s Emission Reporting Module is said to be an important tool for ship owners to comply with the EU’s CSRD (corporate social responsibility directive) and ESG (environmental, social and governance) regulations. With this tool, inland navigation and coastal shipping entrepreneurs are ready for current and future regulations. Using the module is easy, because the software has already made all the necessary calculations. An additional claimed advantage: the ST Brain data make efficient sailing and fuel saving not only feasible, but also insightful and simple – taking a lot of administrative work off entrepreneurs’ hands.
Image: L to R: Janis Vilks, ST Software Engineer; Jurgen Van Dueren, LRQA; Tom Boerema, ST; Lars Kemperman, ST Software Developer (source: Shipping Technology)