Rating the World's Cleanest – and Dirtiest – Ships

Want to make sure that your imports or exports are traveling on a ''clean'' ship? There's a way to do that. Shipping Efficiency.org is an initiative that was launched in 2010 to create a rating database for vessel carbon dioxide emissions. Environmentally conscious shippers can consult the site for reports on more 76,000 commercial vessels in service today, and book their cargo accordingly. But the effort goes well beyond mere reporting. It's an offshoot of the Carbon War Room, created in 2009 by Virgin Group chief executive officer Richard Branson in partnership with RightShip. The objective is to identify private-sector solutions to climate change. Shipping Efficiency.org tackles the ocean shipping sector, which is responsible for more than a billion tons of CO2 emissions each year. In this conversation with Victoria Stulgis, senior associate with Shipping Efficiency.org, we learn of the many actions, both large and small, that vessel owners and operators can take to slash their carbon emissions – all the while making their ships more efficient. A retrofit, she says, can help slash an operator's fuel bills by 15 percent. In all, the industry stands to save some $70bn on fuel by the year 2030.