Greener shipping? A consideration of the issues associated with the introduction of emission control areas

Abstract

This paper draws upon original research undertaken in the United Kingdom and Sweden. It considers the enforcement of regulations associated with the limitation of air emissions from shipping. Specifically, it considers the enforcement of regulations pertaining to the Baltic and North Sea emission control areas (ECAs). The paper outlines the steps that have been taken to ensure vessel compliance in these ECAs. It describes the effectiveness of such enforcement as well as current limitations and gives specific emphasis to the views of vessel operators. The paper ends with a series of recommendations that have been arrived at following discussion of the research findings with a select group of industry experts.

Keywords:

• regulation
• globalisation
• ports
• pollution
• environment
• emissions

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the UK’s Maritime & Coastguard Agency and Sweden’s Sjofartsverket and Transportstyrelsen for their assistance and support. We also thank the Port State Control Officers who allowed us to observe their inspection practice, the 50 anonymous people (regulators, inspectors, ship operators, shipping industry representatives, fuel experts, environmental NGOs and others) who kindly allowed themselves to be interviewed, and the members of our expert Delphi Group who commented on our draft recommendations.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The paper does not focus on regulation of bunker suppliers per se which may be fertile ground for future investigation. This paper is concerned with the broader enforcement of regulations pertaining to ship emissions.

2. Fairway dues are charged to defray the costs of ice-breaking and coastal lights.

3. We note that inadvertent contamination of bunker supplies may occur due to incomplete tank cleaning processes between deliveries of parcels of fuel of different specification in terms of sulphur content.

4. We note that small profit margins may act as an incentive for fraud on the part of bunker suppliers although we did not establish any direct evidence of such fraud nor of the potential drivers for it within this study.

5. The operator told us that if they were ‘desperate’ they could get test results back faster and as quickly as within a day but that this had cost implications so that standard practice was not to do this.

Additional information

Funding

The research was funded by the UK’s Economic & Social Research Council [grant number RES-062-23-2644].